Saw one of those 'only in Hong Kong' sights last night on Bowen Road.
Expat man taking his 2 beautiful golden retrievers for a brisk walk, followed 15 paces behind by his Domestic Helper with newspaper and water bottle to clean up the dog mess and rinse away the dog pee.
One dog squatted down and he gestured (not spoke) to her and she ran up to him, he handed his helper the lead and walked away about 10 ft, she cleaned it up then gave him back the lead and then off he went for a walk again, this happened at least 6 times along the walk. Even when the male dog was just marking his territory.
For goodness sake man, if they are your dogs then you clean up their shit, if your not prepared to do that then let the maid have some time on her own to walk the dogs! She wasn't afraid of the dogs and had them very obviously under control when she took the leads.
I've seen parents hand their children off to the helper to take to the bathroom or change a babies nappy, but dogs was a first one on me.
6 comments:
Surely the man is paying the Filipina/Indonesian for her services. She is getting ten times what she would earn at home if she could get a job at all. Also, I find it civic minded that he should express concern at dog shit in that way. In the West many dog owners just let their dogs crap all over the place. No, you are wrong on this point.
Sorry to disagree, but regardless of how much someone is getting paid, they aren't getting paid for the loss of dignity this type of job displays.
Being a westerner and the owner of 3 dogs, I couldn't even imagine having the audacity to require someone to follow me around for the soul purpose of cleaning up after my dogs.
I could see paying someone to do the whole task as stated above, but just the disgusting part, no matter how civic minded is an insult to the dignity of the person involved.
John
http://www.stonecamel.com
I agree with you and not with anonymous who didn't care to leave a name. This just feels exploitative and distasteful.
-RP
randompensees.mu.nu
It depends on your concept of what domestic helpers should be. Should they be grateful that they can pick up the crap of HK'ers' and expats' dogs and kids just because they are earning a small fortune compared to what they get back at home? I don't necessarily think so.
Gesturing to anyone to do something is disrespectful and arrogant. Domestic helpers are still employees and not slaves, even if they are earning a princely sum by their own standards.
This guy sounded more like an asshole than anything else. The domestic probably would have done the crap cleaning without any obvious displays of "I am your lord and master".
I still say thank you and ask things with a please when I request my maid to do things. I think this is what led her to offer to work for me for free at one point when the financial situation wasn't pretty. Of course, I didn't accept that, but it goes to show how courtesy sometimes goes a long way to garner respect from those who work for you.
If you take Anons comments one step further - presumably the girls who work in Wanchai are greatful for the over weight drunken gweilos - if Anon's logic is correct the girls must be greatful to be earning!
Gweilo's dont have an exclusive on dignity.
Scotsman
Your back!
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