Nii Hao Bao Bao!

Shanghai, CHINA

That’s ‘Hi Baby!’ in Chinese. In China, it’s usual and accepted that most families, local and foreign, employ Chinese women to manage the household. The ‘Ayi’ (Auntie) will clean, do laundry, wash dishes, shop for food, care for children, pay bills, and whatever else needs to be done, all for a very reasonable (ridiculously small) salary.

Thus it was that we employed an Ayi when we arrived in Shanghai in 2008. It was an amazing experience, and one that continues to challenge and baffle me on a personal level as a mother and ‘home-maker.’

When we met, Ayi was exactly my age, 42. Though she didn’t live with us, Ayi was a constant presence in our home. By halfway through 2009, when our kids were about 1.5 and 4.5, I’d come to need her despite the fact that I’d become completely redundant in her presence. She spoke no English. I spoke halting, hideous, Mandarin, underscored for clarity with ape-like body gestures.

When Ayi wanted to give my kids pear juice for a sore throat, or rub spider pee on a rash, in the absence of my own mother, I was supremely grateful for her quiet confidence that these traditional Chinese remedies would actually work.

When I put food out for her to cook and she cringed at the state of my way past the sell-by date vegetables or shook her head, “no, you cannot serve two green dishes in the same meal,” I was comforted that somebody was color-coordinating our diet, because it just would never have occurred to me.

Often I’d be given to complimenting her on the job she’d done that day or thank her for her special attentions to my half-dead houseplants. I was so pleased to be able to tell her in her own language that “My ankle hair is for thanking the bottom of dirt water.”

One week, just as I’d been patting myself on the back thinking “I’ve really got this China thing in the bag,” disaster struck.

It was a Friday and Ayi called to tell me – it turns out – that her grandfather had passed away and could she have funeral leave until Monday.

“Of course” I’d said, not quite sure at that moment what she was saying but knowing my choices were limited to yes or no –  ‘no’ unequivocally placing me in the category of unreasonable bitch. ‘Yes’ most likely compromising my near-future indulgences, like sleep and a shower, not to mention my credibility as ‘the boss.’ But what choice did I have?

While I’d not been, okay, remotely aware of what Ayi and I were discussing (was she going to be late, had she resigned, was she bringing fruit, had she had her hair done?) or what I’d hastily agreed to, I did know that if my phone registered ‘Ayi’ any time before she was due to arrive at 9 AM, it probably meant she wasn’t coming and that my day as I knew it was shot.

In fact it was 6:30 AM, and my near-term destiny became all too clear.

There would be no shower, reading, language study (as if that ever happened), shopping, mani/pedi and I’d need to figure out how, literally, single-handedly, I would do laundry, wash dishes, dust, change linens, empty trash and feed newly acquired tadpoles. Ayi did it all with one arm, the other being full of my 18-month-old Diva-in-a-Diaper, who would not have it any other way.

The problem was, after a year and a half, I’d become accustomed to not doing much of it at all, with any arms.

That morning, I was actually contemplating the next 72 hours of my life and feeling rather more sorry for me than for my Ayi, who, I’d later figured out, had just suffered the loss of her grandfather. “Three whole days? Alone with my kids? I am the one who should get flowers and condolence cards,” I’d thought.

Unable to get back to sleep after The Call, I got up to survey the damage from the day before. Yep, dirty dishes, overflowing trash can, ripe bath towels…

Because I’d been so used to her presence and her labors, even after knowing she wasn’t coming, in her not-thereness I would still observe something sticky on the floor, a carpet of crumbs underneath the highchair, or kitchen utensils in the bathtub and think “no matter, Ayi will take care of it.” Only to recall that on that day everything under my roof was My Problem.

It wasn’t just the cleaning, it was more like “Ohhhh, Holy Shit! I’m going to have to feed my baby, take her outside in the freezing cold, chase her around the playground with Kleenex and fruit skewered on a toothpick, figure out the rice cooker and listen to The Diva and Little Lord Fauntleroy howling ‘I want my AYYYYYiiiii!’”

Once the shock wore off, I absorbed the facts as they might appear in my permanent record: married, mother of two: 1.5 years and 4.5 years; residing in Shanghai, blah blah blah. I was able to massage the reality such that it seemed normal that I would feed and bathe my own kids, clean my toilets and wash my own dishes.

Only I would not, we all knew I would not and there was no sense pretending otherwise. Except for the part about feeding. Bathing? We’d see how dirty they got.

Then I started thinking. Wouldn’t it be better – for all of us – if her relatives could pass during the week? And, preferably all at once? Ayi could get more days off, and I could be spared the trauma of herding two toddlers around the bargain-seeker mosh pit that is Carrefour, for Mac n’ Cheese and Corn Flakes.

For those of you not familiar, Carrefour is a like Turkish bazaar but in China they add a roof to disguise it as a modern hypermarket. It should come with a warning: “You must be at least 48” tall to enter this mayhem; pregnant women are advised that the ‘background’ music will kill your fetus; you may not return anything and the week you spend waiting in the checkout line will not be compensated.”

It was unpleasant alone, and downright obnoxious with children, who never seemed to realize that I’d routinely lose my hearing when I walked in and my mind shortly after.

It’s not like this was the first time we’d been single parents, and I knew we’d survive as we always had before Ayi and during previous “Ayi MIA” situations: by scratching out a living amid chaos, fingerprints, dust bunnies and scummy toilets. On Friday the kids would get fish sticks for dinner, no bath (don’t tell, but Americans don’t actually bathe their kids 7 times a week!), and baby would be placed in her crib while still awake, and most probably still crying. Again, don’t tell Ayi, or any other Chinese. We’d not want to be hunted down for child abuse.

In retrospect I realize that while Daddies maintain balance in the household, I suspect, by being part child themselves; and Mommies seem to upset that balance, I imagine because we are high pitched and frenetic in our approach to most everything – Ayis upend it completely by doting on the kids ceaselessly, seamlessly and without question for all the minutes they reign. Mostly they render the Mommy superfluous until they leave, at which point the children accept the second-tier substitute, embarking on the Darwinian survival skill of repeating ‘mommy, mommy, mommy’ until doors are locked for the night and they can be sure that mommy won’t take off for the shops – or the nearest international airport – and forget them at home.

Further, Mommies, being what they are – sleep-deprived, shower-starved caffeine-addicts who, ironically never get to drink coffee when it’s hot – might seem a bit ‘aloof’ on first waking. They might want to pee, brush teeth or scratch their butt and chew their cud for a few minutes before acknowledging requests for Cheerios with chocolate syrup; Cartoon Network; fort-building; bicycle riding or hosting all the neighborhood friends to play Wii.

Accustomed to my bristly, scratchy morning routine, I was hazy on the details of how it would go without my Ayi. I surmised something like:

“MOMMeeeee! Mommy can I have candy? I need to ride my bike! Mommee? Mommy? Mommy know what? Mommy know that? Teacher Mimi said I need to have chocolate! Mommy let’s play you’re the monster and I’m the baby monster…. Mommy? Wanna come in my rocket ship?!”

Cut to both kids crying and clawing at my pajamas. Me, dodging little mitts and weaving my way toward the jar of instant coffee – skipping the water, pouring the granules straight down my throat – and still needing to pee.

By this point I’d not have done anything but emerge from my room which would only tempt me to retreat, especially when I looked around and considered, “Ayi. Not. Coming. Apocalypse in living room all mine.”

So you see, a hierarchy of indulgence had been established, and when there was no Ayi forthcoming, I’d had to reconcile the fact that while I was second tier, when I got called up, I’d have to serve. On this new illumination I’d waded through the Legos toward the couch for a rest.

Needless to say, the ‘Weekend Without An End In Sight’ proceeded, as time tends to do, and I found myself coping rather well.

In my head I’d recounted the many chores, tasks and livelihoods I’d juggled successfully and imagined the gossip ‘round the compound about how “She is one majorly accomplished Tai Tai!”

“Ahhh. If only Ayi could see me now,” I’d daydreamed: “Look! I put butter on toast. I remembered to pick up my son at the bus stop! I spent the entire day carrying my toddler hither and thither for no other reason than she’d scream at the top of her lungs if I tried to put her down!”

The fantasy crowning achievement: Ayi would come back and go “Holy crap, they’re still alive!” She’d then spread it around that I was the mommiest of all mommies and so capable that she was afraid of losing her job.

Not fucking likely. Even though I’d known deep down that I could manage, and did, Ayi was surprisingly addictive.

At her first arrival on our doorstep, I admit, I’d thought “Why would I ever need someone to cook, clean, shop and raise my kids? – I am their mother, after all and…”

A second later – “You want what? $300 a month to mop my floors every single day? Change diapers, take kids to the playground and cook our dinner?”

From then on, when I got that call, the only one I ever got before 9 AM, I’d just join the chorus with my kids “Where’s my AYYYiiii?!”