hen referring to expatriates, the common understanding is that of business people, foreign correspondents and diplomats, all relatively well off, enjoying comfortable lifestyles, frequent travel, and having every need paid for. On a lower economic level, we think of language teachers, exchange students, artists, researchers, self-imposed exiles, and transients working their way around the world. But in many, if not most, countries, all the above combined account for fewer than half the foreign population.
We usually don't refer to foreign guest workers and migrant laborers as expatriates. But that is indeed what they are, sharing many of the same goals, advantages and difficulties as those in more privileged positions.
From Germany to Kuwait to Taiwan, foreign workers build our buildings and clean our homes. Most leave home for economic reasons; not much different than a banking executive going abroad to further his career. Some take their families; most don't. They, too, are subject to most of the problems referred to in this book: from culture shock to isolation to problems of separation.
One group of the expatriate underclass, though, has its own special problems to compound all the others. From Canada to Singapore to the Middle East, one finds women from Third World Asian countries - especially the Philippines, Thailand, Indonesia, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka - who left home and family behind to work as house servants. Some are from poor families, but many are educated, professional women who find they can earn more cleaning house in a foreign country than they can as a teacher or nurse or architect back home. They go abroad to save up money for their families' sakes for years at a time and often only return when immigration regulations require them to.
These lower-class "astronauts" inhabit the luxurious homes of the wealthy and middle class - and, ironically, the homes of most of the elite-class expatriates in Hong Kong, Singapore, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere. Yet their pay is meager, most of it sent home, and their status in society is very low. Most work in isolation seven days a week - serving a family, but not being a part of it - and are restricted from going out except on errands or during their few weekly hours off.
This is not to paint an entirely gloomy picture of a foreign maid's life. Like everyone else, she learns to adapt and make the best out of it. For most, the benefits received far outweigh the disadvantages.
But sometimes a woman in such a position can lose sight of what or whom she is working for - is it her employer, her family...or herself?

©1996 Cathy Tsang-Feign