Seeing the Invisible Work of Caring: Migrant Domestic Workers in East Asian Films
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| Title: | Seeing the Invisible Work of Caring: Migrant Domestic Workers in East Asian Films |
|---|---|
| Language: | English |
| Authors: | Ellen E. Seiter (ORCID |
| Source: | Educational Philosophy and Theory. 2025 57(3):274-283. |
| Availability: | Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals |
| Peer Reviewed: | Y |
| Page Count: | 10 |
| Publication Date: | 2025 |
| Document Type: | Journal Articles Reports - Descriptive |
| Descriptors: | Films, Caring, Migrants, Child Care, Caregivers, Older Adults, Disabilities, Service Occupations, Asians, Females, Film Study, Critical Thinking, Stereotypes, Labor, Dialogs (Language), Foreign Countries |
| Geographic Terms: | Hong Kong, Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia |
| DOI: | 10.1080/00131857.2024.2435331 |
| ISSN: | 0013-1857 1469-5812 |
| Abstract: | Films provide many memorable scenes of care that both shape and reinforce ideas about who deserves care, how carers should behave, and what kinds of people appear 'naturally' suited to the labors of caring for children, the sick, the elderly and the disabled (namely women). My specific interest here is in films about migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong and Singapore. from the Philippines and Indonesia, who take up live-in housekeeping positions. The films about their lives range from documentary to popular, low-budget horror to independent art cinema. While surveying the strengths and limitations of a handful of these films, I offer strategies for how to frame each film in terms of its director, production methods, distribution, and target audience. How and when might different genres be best used to engage students in critical thinking about care work and migrant labor? What stereotypes exist about migrant workers and what blind spots emerge in understanding paid care work? How can we promote dialogue about the often ambivalent relationship between caregiver and cared-for? |
| Abstractor: | As Provided |
| Entry Date: | 2025 |
| Accession Number: | EJ1467752 |
| Database: | ERIC |
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| FullText | Links: – Type: pdflink Url: https://content.ebscohost.com/cds/retrieve?content=AQICAHj0k_4E0hTGH8RJwT4gCJyBsGNe_WN95AvKlDbXJGqwxwH33-ZzJp-4LQ5iI2DEXfMMAAAA4zCB4AYJKoZIhvcNAQcGoIHSMIHPAgEAMIHJBgkqhkiG9w0BBwEwHgYJYIZIAWUDBAEuMBEEDB7g6jt0yHpKZ3hutwIBEICBm_O3MX1xdXxOQA46z17QaMPlKQeBeH0srFGfXtcS621i7iV-Dicol4URP65Kr_0zK6GkYSdnEKalJAYeyCMY2zDhej0ee1mD2csPcsI7rCRoIFh-BfKSX7rfj-bP12nyUeUixYZJIlC-zpYmxT7GQwonbbgBch30dYqu2Dt3Asm9CNLOnHuwoPrp7rFSasJsLnnc1ePxJKmdf7ws Text: Availability: 1 Value: <anid>AN0183127586;54l01mar.25;2025Feb21.01:53;v2.2.500</anid> <title id="AN0183127586-1">Seeing the invisible work of caring: Migrant domestic workers in East Asian films </title> <p>Films provide many memorable scenes of care that both shape and reinforce ideas about who deserves care, how carers should behave, and what kinds of people appear 'naturally' suited to the labors of caring for children, the sick, the elderly and the disabled (namely women). My specific interest here is in films about migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong and Singapore. from the Philippines and Indonesia, who take up live-in housekeeping positions. The films about their lives range from documentary to popular, low-budget horror to independent art cinema. While surveying the strengths and limitations of a handful of these films, I offer strategies for how to frame each film in terms of its director, production methods, distribution, and target audience. How and when might different genres be best used to engage students in critical thinking about care work and migrant labor? What stereotypes exist about migrant workers and what blind spots emerge in understanding paid care work? How can we promote dialogue about the often ambivalent relationship between caregiver and cared-for?</p> <p>Keywords: Care work; domestic labor; migrant labor; documentary; independent film; care work; migrant worker; Hong Kong cinema; Singapore cinema; reproductive labor; film analysis</p> <p>Films provide many memorable scenes of care that both shape and reinforce ideas about who deserves care, how carers should behave, and what kinds of people appear 'naturally' suited to the labors of caring for children, the sick, the elderly and the disabled (namely women). My specific interest here is in films about migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong and Singapore. from the Philippines and Indonesia, take up live-in housekeeping positions often involving child- and elder-care, in order to send remittances back home for family support. The films about their lives range from documentary to popular, low-budget horror to independent art cinema. While surveying the strengths and limitations of a handful of these films, I offer strategies for how to frame each film in terms of its production methods, distribution, target audience, and genre. How and when might different genres be best used to engage students in critical thinking about care work and migrant labor? What stereotypes exist about migrant workers and what blind spots emerge in understanding paid care work? How can we promote dialogue about the often ambivalent relationship between caregiver and cared-for?</p> <p>Since moving from the US to Hong Kong in 2021, I have learned from friendships I made with activists and scholars engaged with the Indonesian Migrant Workers Union. Separate from my professional life at the university, it has been during events like shared panels and presentations, and through conversations at informal meals and celebrations that I came to understand the consequences of domestic worker contracts, and their enforcement by immigration officials and police.</p> <hd id="AN0183127586-2">1. Migrant workers as 'helpers'</hd> <p>With 'ethics of care' as a topic reaching curricula at all levels in recent years, it is important to educate students about the migrant women doing care work—estimated at over fifty million globally—who do this work, half of them in Asia and the Middle East (ILO). Over 300,000 domestic workers are currently in Hong Kong, a destination for Filipino and Indonesian women since the 1970s when a policy encouraging their arrival was enacted to facilitate increased workforce participation by Hong Kong citizens, primarily women, during a period of rapid economic growth in the financial industries; Singapore started its Foreign Maid Scheme in 1978 (Kantachote, [<reflink idref="bib5" id="ref1">5</reflink>]). The Hong Kong Immigration and the Labor Department registers them as FDH: 'foreign domestic helpers.' This terminology signifies the HK policy that such workers are 'foreign' and remain foreign no matter how long they are employed in Hong Kong, they are prohibited from gaining permanent residency. The Labor pamphlet for prospective employees mentions paid vacations, one day off per week, a food allowance, medical insurance, one plane ticket home per year, and promises work subject to the same labor laws as other workers. Except FDH receives one-third of the government-approved minimum wage.</p> <p>The term 'Helper' suggests that they are merely assisting someone (implicitly the wife/mother of the household) who is in charge and doing the majority of the work. 'Helper' suggests a casual level of assistance, something anyone could do. Thus, the term helper minimizes and deskills the labor of domestic workers. In reality, domestic helpers usually do most, if not all, of the housework, often for large, multi-generational families. Their work requires a high level of organization and time management, language skills (often Hong Kong helpers need English and Cantonese and Putonghua, depending on the household), pet care, and the ability to prepare Western, Hong Kong, and mainland Chinese cuisines. The care of children requires the navigation of complex emotions and conflicting demands: keeping the child happy while enforcing the parents' desired codes of behavior; mothers who are jealous of her child's affection for the carer; the carer's own children, missing their mother and feeling jealous of her care for other children. The elderly family members often suffer from dementia; besides the physically demanding tasks of bathing and toilet assistance, there can be violent outbursts, mood swings, and abuse towards the carer. This is a form of employment that is only taken up by those with limited or no opportunities in their home countries, as well as pressure to work abroad so that remittances can be sent home. It is a type of work rejected by local citizens: in other words, it is extraordinarily hard and difficult, and for this reason, there is an insufficient labor pool among Hong Kong's citizens.</p> <p>Hong Kong's arrangement with the governments of Indonesia and the Philippines, the two countries that send the largest number of 'Foreign Domestic Helpers,' requires all migrants 'live in' and return to their employer's residence every evening, even on their one stipulated day off (Singapore's did not stipulate a day off per week until 2013, and only after highly publicized cases of mistreatment raised calls for reform). Employers may report their worker to the police if they do not return at 10 pm on their day off. Immigration enforces the 'two-week rule,' requiring workers to find another position within two weeks of any contract termination or return to their home country. Singapore requires the purchase of a bond covering a flight home in case of deportation. If a migrant worker files a complaint against her employer, she is not permitted to find another position in Hong Kong until the Labor Tribunal has resolved the claim. Of the many delays in this process, a common cause is the employer failing to show up for the hearing. Thus there is a near-impossibility of workers filing complaints against abusive employers, or those who fail to provide a bed, and a separate bedroom, toilet, and shower. The government requires these of the employer in the contract, but there are never any compliance checks or enforcement of failures to provide. Neither do they have any reliable recourse for an employer's failure to pay a monthly salary or provide medical insurance, or reinforcement in collecting their wages after completion of a contract, especially the stipulated bonus payment for long-term service. Instead, employers often accuse the worker of a criminal offense, from theft to mail fraud to child sexual abuse. These circumstances produce situations of real terror in the extraordinary barriers to escaping bad employers. In Hong Kong there are shelters where women can stay without cost when their visa has been revoked, and where they have access to legal advice and assistance in taking their cases to the Labor Tribunal, or, in case of criminal charges being brought by the employer, defense assistance. Thus, migrant domestic workers navigate complex laws and contractual stipulations that solidify the link between immigration status and powerlessness. As Duke Bagulaya explains the very basis of their vulnerability:</p> <p>If you analyze the contract, it is not merely between a family that wants a foreign helper...it is really a bilateral relationship between two states. This bilateral treaty, which is also a contract, is the foundation of the private contract. These states agree on the conditions of work. The sending country agrees that its people will be treated differently, while the receiving country will treat care workers differently from other migrant workers or so-called talents. (Bagulaya, [<reflink idref="bib2" id="ref2">2</reflink>], np)</p> <hd id="AN0183127586-3">2. Documentary</hd> <p>At the working-class Catholic primary school I attended, there was a big event each year. The nuns would wheel a 16 mm projector into the small auditorium and show Disney's Pollyanna (1960). The same movie was shown to all grades, year after year, once a year. It produced incredible excitement and, for the younger grades, rapt attention and often tears. That was the sum total of our school film screening experience. Today, even with film majors in a university classroom, as soon as the lights are dimmed, the students get out their mobile phones to catch up on social media. The generation gap in media consumption—by genre, platform, device, and uses—between teachers and students can be a vast one, even with the youngest teachers. My argument, based on classroom ethnography in pre-K to grade 6, as well as over 30 years of teaching university-level film school, is that realistic, quality films are not necessarily the best for promoting critical thinking and discussion. Although teachers are likely to have an occupational investment in 'quality' media, students tend to live in a media environment that includes hundreds of Live or just recorded posts on social media, with view count numbers rising exponentially minute by minute. Reality television significantly drew the attention and influenced the taste preferences of young people, who increasingly tend to prefer short clips, on small, individual screens, with more violence, more music, more sensational content, more celebrity content, and more vicarious gratification than traditional news coverage or documentary films. In the US, for example, the 2023 Pew Internet Research study conducted in October 2023, found that YouTube was the top platform among teens, with 93% using the site and 38% using it several times a day. Both YouTube and TikTok were used 'almost constantly' by close to 20% of teens (Anderson et al., [<reflink idref="bib1" id="ref3">1</reflink>], p. 3). Pew Research Center, December 2023, 'Teens, Social Media and Technology 2023'</p> <p>Of the myriad ways the media environment has been expanded since the internet became ubiquitous, the growing numbers, availability and interest in documentary is one of the most profound. The reduced costs of cameras and their inclusion in mobile phones, the availability of inexpensive editing programs such as Final Cut Pro and Premiere, and the staggering advances in data storage (video files requiring very high capacity due to the size of the files) have meant that non-professionals are easily able to produce broadcast quality documentaries. Most students have made some kind of non-fiction video as part of their project-based learning while still in grade school. Social media has made verite style filmmakers of everyone, recording live events, spectacles, crimes and celebrity sightings in the hopes of a post going viral. Choosing films for classroom screening and discussion requires a consideration of all of these factors. YouTube and Vimeo provide a convenient distribution outlet for smaller documentaries, and often provide access to independent documentaries that are sharper in their analysis of contemporary social conditions than what would be found on a major streaming platform like Netflix, Kanopy, or other library subscription database platforms. Two full-length documentaries, <emph>The Helper</emph> and <emph>Hong Kong Beauty Queen,</emph> share a focus on how domestic workers spend their day off on Sundays. This is perhaps the most common subject in news stories, photo essays, and art exhibits about domestic workers. On the one hand, it is a preoccupation of Hong Kongers because it is the moment when the size of the workforce, mostly hidden from view during the week—except as they shop for groceries, do school pick ups and drop offs, or assist the elderly to accomplish their chores or make their doctors appointments, etc.becomes visible all over town. As urban geographer Evelyn Kwok has documented in her highly original work on domestic workers and space, Sundays are the moment when domestic workers creatively commandeer fly-overs, walkways, parks, 'they create their own community spaces and networks in public spaces all over the city. Although their work has contributed to several generations of people in Hong Kong being able to partake in the formal economy and flourish, their status remains controlled and marginalised with limited economic, social, and spatial resources' (Kwok, [<reflink idref="bib6" id="ref4">6</reflink>], p.xi).</p> <p> <emph>The Helper</emph> (2017) is a slick, professionally produced documentary for Westerners, by Westerners. The first part of the film features personal stories, before focusing on the efforts of two women—one a singer/choral director who hopes to work professionally and the other a rock climber participating in a weekend club of the kind so popular with professionals, the 'weekend warriors' training for marathons or some other athletic or outdoor experience. These are unlikely, if not impossible, ambitions for a domestic worker to realize: ambitions belonging to the norms of a social group that values competition, exceptionalism, and individual achievement. <emph>The Helper</emph> is a tribute to these two quite extraordinary characters, presumably to enhance relatability with middle-class audiences. The film is a first film shot by non-Asian Westerners and is essentially for Westerners, and was available on major streaming platforms, and now for rental or purchase.</p> <p>In contrast, the documentary <emph>Hong Kong Beauty Queens (2016)—also known as Sunday Beauty Queens– by Filipina documentarist</emph> Baby Ruth Vilarama is now available on YouTube for free (donations encouraged) and is shot in verite style, including amateur footage, that profiles the stories of domestic workers, their beauty pageants organized in Hong Kong, and the organizer/treasurer of the Sunday beauty competitions. The film seems more authentic than The Helper and moving in its portrayal of the efforts of the women who participate, and the grim conditions under which some of them operate, it develops the theme of domestic workers for whom Hong Kong offered an escape from the gender norms, arranged marriages and high-pressure compulsory heterosexuality in their hometowns.</p> <p>DIY (Do-It-Yourself) filmmaking strategies and inexpensive post-production software have made it possible for those with less specialized knowledge, and no crew to support them, to make new documentary work on domestic work. An interesting, successful example on YouTube is the film <emph>Yaya</emph>, a portrait of a Justin Cheung's relationship with the Filipina worker who has cared for him and his family since he was a child. After returning from years abroad studying at university, he is inspired to make the film and to follow Yaya home on a visit to her family. It is fairly common for ambitious filmmakers to choose to make their first films a documentary relating to a pressing social issue. The film has a frank first-person acknowledgement in voice-over that he never considered what her life was like beyond serving his family, where her own family was, how much she was paid in salary, and why she slept in a tiny room off the kitchen with the laundry or never joined the family at the dining table for meals. This is his first film, and There is no discussion of the larger systemic inequalities that brought Yaya to Hong Kong to work. The trip home does give a glimpse of Yaya's pain and guilt over her absence as a mother, and the alienation felt by Yaya's own children and now grandchildren raised by other family members to allow Yaya to work in Hong Kong. But the ending reveals that Yaya has come to prefer living in Hong Kong to spending time with her own family, and is now best friends with the mother in the family, for whom she now functions as more of a personal assistant and stylist. The autobiographical nature of <emph>Yaya</emph> can make it accessible to middle-class students, who may have themselves been raised by paid caregivers, in a non-threatening way. It is important to note here, in terms of discussion of films about domestic workers, that all classrooms potentially have students whose own mothers worked as paid caregivers, and who may not be comfortable revealing this to their classmates. One strategy for this is to assign students to groups of two (it can be their seat partner), to meet separately and prepare a response to report back to the class as a whole. They can be given answers to a specific question, such as to compare different kinds of reactions to the film, such as 'how would you react to the film if you have been raised by a live-in domestic worker?' or 'how would you react to the film if you were the child of a migrant domestic worker?</p> <p>Vimeo is a useful platform that was formerly primarily used for sharing rough edits and student work, but now features On-demand films available for rent or purchase to everyone and can be a way of accessing documentaries in Hong Kong that have not been submitted for censorship board approval. Francis Catedral's documentary, 'Migrant Women Rise: Stories of Red-Tagged Overseas Filipino Workers' is the boldest and most impactful of these documentaries, as it grows out of the director's longstanding commitment as a participant in migrant's rights organizations. Red-Tagging means that Filipina activists in Hong Kong are marked by Filipino government as dangerous Communists and their passports and right to return are revoked.</p> <p>The film shows at screenings where panels and educational discussions can follow: this is not the Festival circuit model. Catedral is a Divinity student from Arizona, USA, where issues about migrant workers are fraught. MIgrant Women Rising and his forthcoming film both explain how shelters in Hong Kong exist as a place where domestic workers in trouble can go to seek food, a bed, medical help and legal advice. Their stories are very powerful and fresh. But it takes a filmmaker like Catedral, who is living the long term commitment to supporting migrant workers rights to bring their stories beyond pathos to the struggle for meaningful change.</p> <hd id="AN0183127586-4">3. Horror</hd> <p>Kevin Wong's low-budget 'atmospheric horror' and ghost film, <emph>The Maid</emph> (2009), offers a surprisingly detailed account of the vulnerabilities of a first-time Filipina worker joining a household in Singapore as a migrant domestic worker. A first feature by the director, now known as the 'King of Singapore Horror,' the film has gained a cult status on its DVD release.</p> <p>Framing the film in the context of Singaporean society and film culture, Kenneth Paul Tan explains the specific tensions around the domestic workers, who represent.'for Singaporeans a means to pursue careers and demonstrate social status; but the maid is also a punching bag for the frustrated, a cause of repressed personal shame at being responsible for such exploitation, and a daily source of anxiety...' <emph>The Maid</emph> begins with a title sequence over long tracking shots of the streets of Singapore during the nights of the Hungry Ghost festival. The moving shots are intercut with images from festival performances in Chinese opera style and people on the sidewalk burning offerings to the ghosts, while a voice over explains significance of the Hungry Ghost days. The voiceover concludes by explaining that on the final day of the festival the gates open and souls can pass in both directions towards the living or the dead. These moving, colorful, grainy images of the night are intercut with pages of passport photographs of available workers supplied by agencies. At the end of the credits, the heroine's picture has been selected out of rows of young women and an off-screen voice asks her date of birth.</p> <p>Next, the heroine's own voiceover begins, over daylight shots of her arrival at the airport and the bus ride into the Singapore city center. She speaks in the past tense about how excited she was to arrive. She reminisces that her late mother said she would see the world. Coming from a small village in the Philippines, she was excited and grateful for the chance to see something as spectacular as the city of Singapore. Her words are reminiscent of the way domestic work abroad is often advertised by recruiters—as an exciting adventure and opportunity to travel. She meets her employers—a middle-aged Chinese couple called Teo—in front of their live/work space and is warmly welcomed by them and a group of jovial dinner guests speaking Teochew (the dominant dialect of ethnic Chinese in Singapore), all members of a Chinese opera troupe. The part of old Singapore where the film is set looks nothing like the view from the bus: gone are the modern high-rise buildings and broad streets. The row houses here are from another era and the streets have an eerie, deserted quality to them. The party guests immediately comment on how pretty she is and that she better be kept away from one man in the troupe. It is a warning of the fact of sexual abuse so commonly suffered by domestic workers.</p> <p>The morning after her arrival, Rosa is sweeping the sidewalk in front of the house when the mother rushes out scolding her loudly—ordering her to leave the ashes from burnt offerings to the Hungry Ghosts. She speaks in a harsh tone—and warns her that she must never touch the offerings to the Hungry Ghosts, including the ashes. Later, in her room, and as she goes about her work cleaning in the house's labyrinthine, old-fashioned washrooms and storage, she encounters a frightening zombie creature—in the closet mirror, in cupboards, under her bed—the ghost of the previous helper who was raped and killed there. Gradually we learn that Rosa has been chosen because she physically resembles the dead woman, and the couple intends to send her into the afterlife to marry their son, Ah-Soon, who killed himself.</p> <p>Her mistake with cleaning the ashes has left her able to see ghosts of the recently dead. At first, she only glimpses the couple's developmentally delayed son in the house, peeking around corners and passageways, arguing with his parents in back rooms. Later, the couple begins leaving the son in her care. The Teos invite Rosa to attend one of their performances. As the son begins acting out backstage, demanding to participate in the drumming, the Teos rush Rosa off to watch from the audience. Rosa takes a seat in the first row only, not knowing that these seats are left empty for the ghosts, but moments later, she sees their apparitions, and they angrily tell her to move out of her seat. Rattled and confused by the apparitions, Mr. Teo appears to give her the house keys and tells her to walk home while they finish the performance. Along the way, she encounters more ghosts of the recently dead, including a small boy who was hit by a car when he chased his ball into the street. She is sent out on errands and the son accompanies her, but she slowly realizes something is terribly wrong here. At the Teo's home, she and the parents see and interact with the son, but when she is out in public, no one can see Ah-Soon except for her.</p> <p>She receives a message about her younger brother back in the Philippines being sick and needing hospitalization, but when Rose tells her employers she must leave, they offer to lend her a generous sum of money as an advance on her salary to cover the medical expenses if she will stay on with them in Singapore. She has increasing difficulty getting away from the son, who is becoming physically aggressive. Her employers have begun locking her inside, even suggesting that there is no need for her to go out to post letters back home, they will mail them for her. After discovering a stack of all of her letters home never mailed, she manages to slip out of the house and go to the employment agency that arranged her contract, complaining that she fears for her life. The agent, rather than listening to her complaint, drives her back and delivers her into the keeping of the Teos.</p> <p>Fans of the horror genre will recognize Rosa's character as a 'final girl' in this film: the last victim who survives the horror films' terror. Violence, both occult and human, escalates until The Maid's end, but her first-person narration at the film's opening signals that Rosa will survive. In the suspenseful closing of the film, Rosa narrowly escapes being burnt alive by her captors, who are killed on the very spot where they first greeted her, the home that had become Rosa's prison. Film scholar Lan Duong ([<reflink idref="bib3" id="ref5">3</reflink>]) has argued that ghosts and hauntings are allegories for the buried secrets of a nation's violent past, especially when censorship enforces particular images of national policies. <emph>The Maid</emph> dramatizes Singaporeans' objectification of and assumed power over the non-Chinese other, the immigrant from one of the more impoverished countries of East Asia. Cultural studies scholar Kenneth Paul Tan writes about the problem of the foreign maid for Singaporeans, who 'have become very dependent on cheap domestic workers and who want to project themselves as having achieved an affluent and decent middle-class society with proper "Asian values".' He goes on:</p> <p>Smugly, Singaporean employers often explain how foreign maids should feel fortunate to work in Singapore, where they can earn enough money to return home wealthy. The foreign maid, then, becomes for Singaporeans a means to pursue careers and demonstrate social status; but the maid is also a punching bag for the frustrated, a cause of repressed personal shame at being responsible for such exploitation. (Tan, [<reflink idref="bib10" id="ref6">10</reflink>], p. 213)</p> <p>It is Mr. and Mrs. Teo who are guilty of covering up and burying their son's crime and continuing the cycle of violence. It is Ah-Soon's parents who kill Esther, trick Rosa into staying, and attempt to lure her into their scheme to marry the ghost of Ah-Soon. They treat Rosa with feigned kindness and generosity but consider her disposable.</p> <p>Tong undermines the film's critique by choosing to write the son, Ah-Soon, as intellectually disabled and capable of sexual violence (most sexual violence against migrant domestic workers, of course, is committed by privileged, intellectually able, not disabled, men). The able actor in the role performs the character in a broad, almost ape-like fashion: grinning, showing his teeth, oblivious of others. This detracts from the more interesting monsters of the film: Mr. and Mrs. Teo. While Ah-Soon has sympathetic moments (i.e., he is driven to suicide by his guilt over Esther's death and he attacks his father when he tries to kill Rosa), the parents are the cruel, unforgivable ones who invited Rosa to their home for the sole purpose of killing her.</p> <p>The ghost of Esther that pops out in the film's early scenes and terrifies Rosa is actually there to warn her rather than harm her. As the film proceeds, there are many ghost sightings, but they are reliving their stories and the circumstances of their death. As Kenneth Tan explains, Esther is a guardian angel, a ghost with a purpose, she has 'returned during the Ghost Month to take revenge on the Teo family, to warn and rescue her fellow Filipina exploited by the same global logic of patriarchal capitalism, and to enlist Rosa's help to return her remains to her home in the Philippines...': (Tan p. 217) I would argue that The Maid, despite its popular, low-budget, low-prestige origins, may be more true-to-life in revealing the labor exploitation and vulnerability of migrant domestic workers than the higher-end, more prestigious A Simple Life.</p> <hd id="AN0183127586-5">4. Independent cinema: A Simple Life</hd> <p>One of the best known films about domestic work in Hong Kong is <emph>A Simple Life (2011)</emph>, directed by the highly-esteemed Ann Hui On-Wah. The film played first at international circuit of festivals before theatrical release (unusual for Hong Kong productions). Deanie Ip, playing the domestic worker Ah Tao, earned eight nominations for best actress and won the Venice International Film Festival award for best actress. The film captured five major awards at the Hong Kong Film Festival (the Grand Slam of film, director, screenplay, actress, actor), and went on to enjoy surprising box office success across East Asia. Its success contributed to building Hui's international reputation to the point where she received a lifetime achievement award at the Venice Film festival in 2020 (Marchetti, [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref7">7</reflink>], p. 13). The source material for the film is a memoir by film producer Roger Lee Yan-Lam, played by Hong Kong film star Andy Lau, who also served as producer and contributed to the screenplay. This 'true story' basis for the film, combined with Ann Hui's careful research and documentary-style direction promised a deeper treatment of the life of the domestic worker.</p> <p>In the film's opening scenes, the two characters' daily work lives are intercut, with Roger traveling and organizing meetings to arrange film finance and pre-production contrasted with Ah Tao's slow, methodical, and painstaking shopping for the best and also the cheapest ingredients for his meals. In this sense, the film's first sequences are quite remarkable in that by the time she is serving him food, we have seen each step of the process. At the market, this involves walking to the best vendors and carefully selecting each vegetable, fish, and cut of meat to put together the dish. We see the strained effort involved in carrying her packages up the steep steps to go home.</p> <p>As she serves Roger, he is absorbed in reading and never even looks up to acknowledge when the dish is served or cleared away, when the tea comes. At one point, he holds up his cup for her to refill without taking his eyes off what he is reading. For him, her work is so taken for granted that no acknowledgment of any kind is required of him: not even a glance or a nod. Before he departs, he comments that he has not had an oxtail dish in some time. She briefly scolds him for eating too many foods high in fat, and he simply responds that he would like the oxtail served stewed. This is the only time he even acknowledges her presence serving him, and it is only to wave off her response. At this moment, we see a glimpse of the history of their relationship: she has cared for him since infancy and still sees him as the child who should be nagged about his poor eating habits, he is accustomed to a lifetime of service from her, which he resumed even after a decade living in the US.</p> <p>There are more scenes that carefully and beautifully render the many dimensions of her work: laying out his perfectly laundered and folded clothes and packing them for his work travels; caring for the family cat; and, in a flashback before the closing titles, Au Tao sitting at the window, waiting for Roger to arrive back home safely before she turns out the light and goes to sleep. In these early scenes, there is a quiet indictment of Roger's lack of concern or interest in her as a person and obliviousness to the extent of the work she does for him. Her work supports him in his professional life—relieving him of all duties for the apartment, for feeding himself, for preparing his wardrobe—but she is nearly invisible to Roger, who shows no gratitude or appreciation.</p> <p>Director Hui subtly shows signs of the character's fatigue as she goes about her work. Soon after these early scenes, she suffers a stroke. Roger arrives home from a two-day trip and has forgotten his keys. He bangs on the door calling out to her, but she is alone and unconscious inside. This begins Hui's exploration of the difficulties of being a caretaker who has no one, as she grows old, to care for her. Caretakers are women expected to forgo having children themselves, so this also means that when they are elderly and unable to work, there is no family member to take care of them. Au Tao is taken by ambulance to the hospital, where Roger learns about the seriousness of her injuries. When she has recovered consciousness, she insists to Roger that she go into a care facility instead of returning to Roger's flat. If she cannot do the work of caring, she feels she does not belong there. She asks Roger to find her a place in a nursing home, insisting she can pay for it out of her own savings.</p> <p>A Simple Life is a character study of two characters. Roger's narrative arc progresses from an initial self-centered focus on his work to a realization of the depth of his attachment to Au Tao, her cantankerous, opinionated, headstrong personality, and the debt he owes her for the lifelong care she provided to him. At the film's beginning, Roger's relationship to her is one of disavowal: he is a typical Hong Konger in his careless disregard for the family servant. At the film's end, Roger emerges as a person able to cater to and sacrifice for Au Tao, exhibit the patience required for their interactions to be successful, and separate from his professional life long enough to notice the world around him and the way his relationships have been shaped by privilege. Au Tao's story is a character study of this woman's sense of personal pride as well as duty to the family she served for 60 years, and how she adapts to life in the care home. When other residents ask if she is a maid, she conceals the fact, and Roger assists her by saying she is his godson. At the nursing home, she recovers from her initial depression by starting to care for other, more disabled residents. Roger visits her regularly, but she chooses to spend the New Year's holiday alone at the facility. Up until her death, she insists on practicing thrift, on not being a burden to others, on a fierce self-reliance. A good portion of the film deals with the larger implications of Hong Kong's nursing home businesses, the potential for fraud, neglect, and mistreatment of the elderly. But the overall emotional register of the film is deeply sentimental, with tear-jerker sequences from her deathbed to the funeral. Au Tao's greatest role, it seems, has been to turn Roger into a caring person.</p> <p>The pathos in the film is the result of how we see Au Tao's enduring, voluntary commitment to the family who employed her and her insistence on paying for her own care after she can no longer serve Roger. Gina Marchetti has made the sharp observation that the film is more interesting in its focus on how Roger's cross-border deal-making for film production symbolizes the situation of Hong Kong in relation to mainland China and the high-pressure stakes around collaboration and economic partnerships. The need for Hong Kong businesses to secure China's patronage parallels Au Tao's need for Roger's patronage to secure all the forms of care (medical, nursing home, and Roger's visits as well) to survive her stroke and its aftermath. Marchetti identifies Au Tao's faithful family service as a 'fading relic of a patriarchal past.' The basis for the film being a memoir surely limited how the director could shape the material. But despite the early scenes in which Roger seems cold and unappreciative, and despite the film touching on the precarity of workers like Au Tao once they are too old or too impaired to work, the film reaffirms the status quo. Marchetti observes that, as a female director gaining increasing recognition after the release of <emph>A Simple Life</emph>, Hui offers 'reminders of the continuing perils of precarity in an uncertain economic order' that will be recognized by Hong Kong audiences, while simultaneously providing for international audiences 'a way of experiencing a sense of 'optimism' no matter how 'cruel' life is at the cinematic borders of the Chinese-speaking world' (Marchetti, [<reflink idref="bib7" id="ref8">7</reflink>], p. 27)</p> <p>Director Ann Hui has a long record of many of Hong Kong cinema's most significant films about gender, migration, and a variety of social injustices. A Simple Life is the most artistic of these three films, but it is also the most troubling in the way it makes Au Tao a vehicle for Roger's awakening, much like Franz Fanon's formulation of 'the magical negro' trope in Western narratives.</p> <hd id="AN0183127586-6">5. Conclusion</hd> <p>While all of these films are welcome for providing some concrete details and perspective on migrant workers, the precarity of their status in places like Hong Kong and Singapore, and a respectful appreciation for their work, they remain limited by generic conventions as well as the dominant discourse. Daisy Tam has noted her frustrations in this regard,</p> <p>I feel trapped by the rhetoric of care because so often we capitalize on unproblematized or over-positive types of understanding of care. I feel trapped between these two discourses. Within the charity sector, there is the victim discourse or heroic discourse of resilience. I feel trapped between these discourses. I am unable to find a way out. Theorizing care for me is also finding a new language to talk about these issues. (Tam, [<reflink idref="bib9" id="ref9">9</reflink>])</p> <p>One of my goals here was to argue for educators to consider a broader range of potential films than what might seem at first glance the safest, quality choices. As educators, any of these films could usefully be used to initiate dialogue about care work and migrant workers, and could helpfully be juxtaposed with some of the negative coverage of migrant domestic workers on television and in newspapers. Much more needs to be done to develop a critical pedagogy around domestic work, the politics of care, and migrant labor policies. Ravinder Sidhu, writing in the context of refugees and the professionals whose work involves refugees, asks, 'How might an ethics of engagement be enacted in and through schooling?' (Sidhu, [<reflink idref="bib8" id="ref10">8</reflink>], p. 301). This is one of the most pressing questions in formulating ways to educate students about migrant workers and heighten awareness of their ethical responsibilities as international citizens. Cultural and legal scholar John Nguyen Erni warns against the sense of futility when confronting the structural odds against those of migrant workers: 'However ambivalent one may feel about human rights, especially among critical circles, whatever we think about how enforceable international law can be, we should not confuse contingency and contradiction with total failure, crossroads with dead end (Erni, [<reflink idref="bib4" id="ref11">4</reflink>]). I have argued here for the importance of popular genres, as potentially more true-to-life in conveying the affective lived experience of domestic workers than more prestigious films. Let us also bring classroom discussion to how contemporary systems of media production and distribution favor certain stories, formats, and genres over others, and when their limitations make meaningful solidarity structurally excluded from thought.</p> <hd id="AN0183127586-7">Disclosure statement</hd> <p>No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).</p> <ref id="AN0183127586-8"> <title> References </title> <blist> <bibl id="bib1" idref="ref3" type="bt">1</bibl> <bibtext> Anderson, M., Faverio, M., &amp; Gottfried, J. (2023). Teens, social media and technology 2023. Pew Research Center.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib2" idref="ref2" type="bt">2</bibl> <bibtext> Bagulaya, J. D. (2023). Comment No.5 Session One, 'Theorizing care: A humanities online reading course" hosted by Comparative cultures of care: An interdisciplinary project, faculty of humanities. The Education University of Hong Kong.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib3" idref="ref5" type="bt">3</bibl> <bibtext> Duong, L. (2016). Diasporic returns and the making of Vietnamese American ghost films in Vietnam. MELUS: Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States, 41 (3), 153 – 170. https://doi.org/10.1093/melus/mlw029</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib4" idref="ref11" type="bt">4</bibl> <bibtext> Erni, J. N. (2019). Law and cultural studies: A critical rearticulation of human rights. Routledge.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib5" idref="ref1" type="bt">5</bibl> <bibtext> Kantachote, K. (2023). Micromanagement of foreign domestic workers in Singapore: The influence of state regulations and laws. Heliyon, 9 (7). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.heliyon.2023.e17679</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib6" idref="ref4" type="bt">6</bibl> <bibtext> Kwok, E. (2024). Spatial agency and occupation: Migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong. Edinburgh University Press.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib7" idref="ref7" type="bt">7</bibl> <bibtext> Marchetti, G. (2022). Intersections of gender, generation, and class at Hong Kong's border: Precarious peripheries in Ann Hui's A SimpleLife (2011) and Flora Lau's Bends. Sextant, 38 (38), 21 – 42. https://doi.org/10.4000/sextant.742</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib8" idref="ref10" type="bt">8</bibl> <bibtext> Sidhu, R. (2017). Navigating unfreedoms &amp; re-imagining ethical counter-conducts: Caring about refugees &amp; asylum seekers. Educational Philosophy and Theory, 49 (3), 294 – 305. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2016.1225558</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibl id="bib9" idref="ref9" type="bt">9</bibl> <bibtext> Tam, D. (2023). Comment No.11, Session One, "Theorizing care: A humanities online reading course" hosted by Comparative cultures of care: An interdisciplinary project, faculty of humanities. The Education University of Hong Kong.</bibtext> </blist> <blist> <bibtext> Tan, K. P. (2010). Pontianaks, ghosts and the possessed: Female monstrosity and national anxiety in Singapore cinema. Asian Studies Review, 34 (2), 151–170.</bibtext> </blist> </ref> <aug> <p>By Ellen E. Seiter</p> <p>Reported by Author</p> </aug> <nolink nlid="nl1" bibid="bib10" firstref="ref6"></nolink> |
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| Items | – Name: Title Label: Title Group: Ti Data: Seeing the Invisible Work of Caring: Migrant Domestic Workers in East Asian Films – Name: Language Label: Language Group: Lang Data: English – Name: Author Label: Authors Group: Au Data: <searchLink fieldCode="AR" term="%22Ellen+E%2E+Seiter%22">Ellen E. Seiter</searchLink> (ORCID <externalLink term="https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2638-9013">0000-0002-2638-9013</externalLink>) – Name: TitleSource Label: Source Group: Src Data: <searchLink fieldCode="SO" term="%22Educational+Philosophy+and+Theory%22"><i>Educational Philosophy and Theory</i></searchLink>. 2025 57(3):274-283. – Name: Avail Label: Availability Group: Avail Data: Routledge. Available from: Taylor & Francis, Ltd. 530 Walnut Street Suite 850, Philadelphia, PA 19106. Tel: 800-354-1420; Tel: 215-625-8900; Fax: 215-207-0050; Web site: http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals – Name: PeerReviewed Label: Peer Reviewed Group: SrcInfo Data: Y – Name: Pages Label: Page Count Group: Src Data: 10 – Name: DatePubCY Label: Publication Date Group: Date Data: 2025 – Name: TypeDocument Label: Document Type Group: TypDoc Data: Journal Articles<br />Reports - Descriptive – Name: Subject Label: Descriptors Group: Su Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Films%22">Films</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Caring%22">Caring</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Migrants%22">Migrants</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Child+Care%22">Child Care</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Caregivers%22">Caregivers</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Older+Adults%22">Older Adults</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Disabilities%22">Disabilities</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Service+Occupations%22">Service Occupations</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Asians%22">Asians</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Females%22">Females</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Film+Study%22">Film Study</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Critical+Thinking%22">Critical Thinking</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Stereotypes%22">Stereotypes</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Labor%22">Labor</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Dialogs+%28Language%29%22">Dialogs (Language)</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Foreign+Countries%22">Foreign Countries</searchLink> – Name: Subject Label: Geographic Terms Group: Su Data: <searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Hong+Kong%22">Hong Kong</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Singapore%22">Singapore</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Philippines%22">Philippines</searchLink><br /><searchLink fieldCode="DE" term="%22Indonesia%22">Indonesia</searchLink> – Name: DOI Label: DOI Group: ID Data: 10.1080/00131857.2024.2435331 – Name: ISSN Label: ISSN Group: ISSN Data: 0013-1857<br />1469-5812 – Name: Abstract Label: Abstract Group: Ab Data: Films provide many memorable scenes of care that both shape and reinforce ideas about who deserves care, how carers should behave, and what kinds of people appear 'naturally' suited to the labors of caring for children, the sick, the elderly and the disabled (namely women). My specific interest here is in films about migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong and Singapore. from the Philippines and Indonesia, who take up live-in housekeeping positions. The films about their lives range from documentary to popular, low-budget horror to independent art cinema. While surveying the strengths and limitations of a handful of these films, I offer strategies for how to frame each film in terms of its director, production methods, distribution, and target audience. How and when might different genres be best used to engage students in critical thinking about care work and migrant labor? What stereotypes exist about migrant workers and what blind spots emerge in understanding paid care work? How can we promote dialogue about the often ambivalent relationship between caregiver and cared-for? – Name: AbstractInfo Label: Abstractor Group: Ab Data: As Provided – Name: DateEntry Label: Entry Date Group: Date Data: 2025 – Name: AN Label: Accession Number Group: ID Data: EJ1467752 |
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| RecordInfo | BibRecord: BibEntity: Identifiers: – Type: doi Value: 10.1080/00131857.2024.2435331 Languages: – Text: English PhysicalDescription: Pagination: PageCount: 10 StartPage: 274 Subjects: – SubjectFull: Films Type: general – SubjectFull: Caring Type: general – SubjectFull: Migrants Type: general – SubjectFull: Child Care Type: general – SubjectFull: Caregivers Type: general – SubjectFull: Older Adults Type: general – SubjectFull: Disabilities Type: general – SubjectFull: Service Occupations Type: general – SubjectFull: Asians Type: general – SubjectFull: Females Type: general – SubjectFull: Film Study Type: general – SubjectFull: Critical Thinking Type: general – SubjectFull: Stereotypes Type: general – SubjectFull: Labor Type: general – SubjectFull: Dialogs (Language) Type: general – SubjectFull: Foreign Countries Type: general – SubjectFull: Hong Kong Type: general – SubjectFull: Singapore Type: general – SubjectFull: Philippines Type: general – SubjectFull: Indonesia Type: general Titles: – TitleFull: Seeing the Invisible Work of Caring: Migrant Domestic Workers in East Asian Films Type: main BibRelationships: HasContributorRelationships: – PersonEntity: Name: NameFull: Ellen E. Seiter IsPartOfRelationships: – BibEntity: Dates: – D: 01 M: 01 Type: published Y: 2025 Identifiers: – Type: issn-print Value: 0013-1857 – Type: issn-electronic Value: 1469-5812 Numbering: – Type: volume Value: 57 – Type: issue Value: 3 Titles: – TitleFull: Educational Philosophy and Theory Type: main |
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