The pursuit of happiness

People all over the world are on the move. And I don’t mean expats booking their autumn break in Bali to escape the Singapore haze. No, I am referring to people leaving their countries in a less comfortable manner, with the help of traffickers and flimsy rubber boats. Europe, for example, is flooded with migrants from other, less prosperous continents. A crisis, it has been called. In the Netherlands the public seems to identify two kinds of migrants: the refugees, the ones that fled war and violence, and are more or less deserving of our help and attention. Then, there are those commonly referred to in Dutch as gelukzoekers.

Gelukzoeker is an interesting word, it can be translated (and interpreted) in two ways: someone searching for happiness. Or, someone looking for a stroke of good luck. I can’t help but wonder which of the two people mean when they use this word. 

Asia has its portion of people on the move too. Meet Siti, single mother from Indonesia, a country not torn apart by war, where no terrorist organisation threatens her or her children’s life. Siti left her young sons with her mother to find her happiness, or maybe just a small slice of good luck, in Singapore. Why, I ask her.

Siti rolls her sad eyes. Life is hard for a single mother on Java. Working in a sugar cane factory, she barely earned enough to buy food for her two sons, let alone school uniforms or books. Then she lost that job too. No jobs ma’am, on Java.

Siti did not flee from war, but from poverty. She got a loan from an agent and boarded a plane for a job as a domestic worker in Singapore. Now, eight months of hard work later, she just paid off her loan, and would have been receiving her first salary. But that did not happen. Siti was unlucky.

Her employer made her work from five in the morning until after midnight, with little rest in between. The amount of food she received was too little for the hard work. She never had a day off. She never heard a friendly word. Siti became depressed, and ran away.

I met Siti in the shelter of HOME, the charity I work for. With the assistance of HOME, Siti filed a complaint against her employer to the Ministry of Manpower. She was unlucky again, and her request to be transferred to a new employer was not granted. Siti’s former employer, angry about her running away, is sending her back to Indonesia. With empty pockets.

The difference between the Singaporean approach to migrant workers - welcoming them in, but under strict, sometimes harsh conditions- , and the European way, where getting in is tough (and sometimes lethal), but if you do get in you are treated well, has widened my view on migrant issues worldwide. Unfortunately, that does not bring me any closer to a conclusion, let alone a solution.

The truth probably lies in the middle, and both parties could learn from the other. I am stuck with a growing frustration about inequality in the world, and that birth-lottery that is so grossly unfair. Neither Asia nor Europe seem to handle things in a way that I'd consider well, humane, and to the best of their ability. Xenophobia and 'own people come first' sentiments thrive all around. We could do so much more, for refugees and economic migrants alike.

I have learned one thing, economic migrants like Siti, gelukszoekers, are not looking for welfare, charity and free houses. They simply want a job. Safety from violence and privation. An opportunity to make a living and provide for their families. And some protection from exploitation, human traffickers, abusive employers and dire work-, and living arrangements. But migrant workers are out of luck. In Europe these days, poverty, no matter how dire, is not seen as a justifiable reason to flee a country. 

In Singapore many migrants find what they came for: a job, and money to send home. A certain amount of hardship they take for granted. The life of these migrant workers is not easy, but they do what is needed for their families to survive and thrive. Do they find their happiness? Maybe some do. Happiness is a luxury not everyone can afford.

HOME is a Singaporean registered charity that works for the well-being, justice and empowerment of migrant workers and trafficked victims in Singapore. As a non-profit organisation they rely on private donations to fund their work. Please visit www.HOME.org.sg for more information, or if you want to contribute by donating or becoming a HOME volunteer. 

Photo by Dominica Fitri, HOME

 * Siti's name has been changed for privacy reasons. The woman in the photograph is another Indonesian domestic worker, who stayed with HOME a few years ago, and has agreed to her photo being used from HOME promotions. 

The Mango Princess

Teaching women staying at the shelter of HOME, a Singaporean charity that supports foreign domestic workers in trouble with their employers, is an extremely inspiring job. It is amazing to see what my students can teach me. 

Meet Maribel (not her real name), from the Philippines. The first time I met her was during my story writing class. She sat in a corner, quiet between chatting classmates, hunched over her papers. On all the questions of my writing exercise she gave the same answer. The first thing she saw when she woke up in her bunk bed at the shelter? She wouldn’t know, she only felt sadness for missing her son. What breakfast looked and tasted like? She wouldn’t know, she only felt sadness for missing her son. Her most and least favourite activity? She wouldn’t know, she only felt sadness for missing her son.
Not sure how to cheer her up, I gave Maribel a clean sheet and said: ‘Ok. Then write about your son for me.’ 

Not much later Maribel had filled the entire page with stories about how she picked the eight-year-old boy up from school, and took him to the market. They would indulge in their favourite fruit: mango. Maribel told about all his favourite foods she would cook for him, which were her favourites too, and the games they would play. Impressed, I told her how great her writing was. ‘You just showed me how much you care about your son, without once using the word love.’

The week after, Maribel joined the ‘Dreams’ class, where girls are encouraged to think about their future in a positive way. Whilst looking at the future, I learned more about Maribel’s history. She came from a very poor family, but had married a man whose parents were the owners of a mango farm, and quite affluent. Maribel’s in-laws had always looked down on their peasant daughter-in-law, straining the relationship with her husband. The light of her life was her son, and she focussed all her love on him. Her dream was to plant a mango tree, together with her son, in her own garden. This class, Maribel was much less shy, and smiled regularly.

Another week and another writing class later we met again in the Dreams class. During the introductions I marvelled at how Maribel had changed. She was now always the first to answer any question, stimulating others to join as well. The exercise of the day was to name a person you admired. It could be a famous person, a neighbour, or someone in the family. It should be someone you would like to be, if only for a day. Maribel was the first to write the name of who she wanted to be on her paper, and showed it proudly to the others. She had named Cinderella. The other girls nodded approvingly. But Maribel was not looking to be rescued by Prince Charming. 

Maribel told us how her life had been like that of Cinderella. Her own mother had died young, and her rich in-laws had never treated her much better than they would a servant. She wished for the strength of Cinderella, because Cinderella never lost hope. Cinderella found love and happiness in small things. And she always stayed friendly and kind, despite her hardships. Maribel hoped she could be just like that. 

Maribel is still staying in the HOME shelter, waiting for the Ministry of Manpower to solve her case, so she can go home and plant that mango tree with her son. Maribel is not waiting for Prince Charming. She will make her own happy end. 

The help

Life in Singapore comes with benefits. Help. Cheap, all day, domestic help. The comfortable-off Singaporean housewife does not have to get distracted by laundry, mopping floors or getting groceries. She has time for the more important things in life. Like having coffee, with friends.

Whilst the kids relieve the small wooden shop in the corner of the living room of its wares, drive around the baby pram, or push over stacks of Duplo bricks, I pour another round of ice tea for their mothers. One of my friends wipes the sweat of her forehead. It is hot today. I hand around my homemade Dutch ‘ontbijtkoek,’ and my Australian, British and Indian friends taste and approve. We talk about baking. Cooking. And, before long, the help.

My Australian friend is looking for a new one. Her third. Why is she so unlucky? Either they cannot clean, don’t listen, or can’t control the kids. My other, Indian, friend, tells about her new helper, who worked for another Indian family for six years and promised to know all the ins and outs of complex Indian food. When my friend asked her to roll chapatti’s, the Philippina girl rolled her eyes. Where was the electric chapatti maker? The girl had no idea how to cook the vegetarian dishes my friend favoured, and she was considering a cooking course.
Cooking courses for helpers abound in Singapore, to teach Chinese, Western, Korean or Japanese food, to any employer’s fancy.

My British friend sighs. There won’t be a course in the world to help my helper, she says with a shake of her head, she managed to burn boiled eggs. We all nod, ready to carry on, share more stories, but my friend cries, no, really, literally. The girl let the eggs boil for hours, until the water was gone and the pot black with soot. 
But, my friend shrugs, she is great with the kids.

Complaining about the help. I have heard worse, far worse. These conversations can make me feel uncomfortable, but are also just so human, showing clearly the old, colonial inequalities in this otherwise so modern city. The girls, usually from poor and remote villages in the Philippines or Indonesia, don’t always have much in common with their Chinese, Indian and Western employers.

I try not to, not to complain. But I am only human too, the weather is hot and the ice tea cool. My complaint? My Indah is too good a cook. And she enjoys it too. I had resolved to do this myself, really I had. But the tropical heat makes lazy and tired. The afternoons are full of football, ballet and swimming lessons, and cooking time for dinner inconveniently coincides with bath and bedtime. So when Indah asks, with hope in her keen eyes, what she can cook tonight I let her, save in the knowledge that it will be good and tasty and requires no effort on my side. Not even the dishes after.

Every recipe I give her she will copy, faultlessly, better than I, who can stick to no command, ever could. Even my ‘why not something with aubergine and ginger’ gets tasty results.

We are best when we work and learn together, combining her Asian experience and excellent chopping skills with my western and technical food knowledge. She chops, she suggests, I google and I mix, all the flavours of the globe. Together we create real fusion food. We are a good team, my Indonesian helper and me. 

Indah's fish in kechap

2 large white, soft fish fillets (we use Pangasius)

5 cm ginger

2 cloves garlic

1 large onion

red chilli to taste

sweet Kechap Manis (indonesian soy sauce)

Slice the onion in thin rings and chop the ginger and garlic fine. For heat you can use either the larger, milder red chilli's, which add both flavour and colour, but if you like a bit more of a punch you can also add some of the smaller, but hotter, thai chilli's. 

Heat some oil in a wok, and fry the onion, garlic, ginger and chili for a minute or so.  Then add the fish, and fry briefly. Add the soy sauce generously, around 3 to 4 table spoons should do it. Fry until the fish is tender, and add a few tablespoons of water if the dish threatens to get too dry.