Filipino nanny culture

In HK it is not uncommon to have a nanny and clean for you. For about 500$/month CND you could have someone do your laundry, wash your car, do groceries, make you dinner and take care of your children (if applicable). Most often these nannies are women from the Philippines with families back home. They come to the big city to work and send money home to their children. Sundays is every nanny’s given day off. With no real family or friends in the city, these women gather in the downtown core to make friends. Every Sunday (and sometimes, but more sparsely on Saturdays) they virtually line every public space and walkway (especially surrounding city hall). Sitting on cardboard boxes, and blankets often enclosed by umbrellas, they eat, play cards, chat/gossip, shop, and share stories. Rather than troubled, drug addicted homeless men or street kids in North America, poverty in HK are those either from the mainland (farmers coming to earn money for their families back home), or those from more impoverished countries/areas.



Class difference is not so much seen as social problem (drug addiction, abuse, crime), but as those who come from a more traditional way of life or non-industrialized society. They are seen as uneducated and somewhat more primitive (referring more to the idea of‘mainlanders’) rather than troubled and mentally unstable (“crazy”).