On abuse of foreign domestic workers

I HAVE to post this really great article by Helen Ang in MalaysiaKini about the rampant abuse of Indonesian domestic workers in Malaysia and the Malaysian government's arrogance in dealing with the problem. The article is smart, funny and written with the Swiftian razor-sharp wit. Great job!
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Dear President Bambang, about the maids...
Helen Ang
Jul 2, 2009
4:18pm

Dear President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono,

I'm writing this open letter to you, sir, in the spirit of 1Asean.

I implore that your country should not be jealous of our Malaysian success. On top of other proud achievements, Malaysia adds another feather to our cap: We have the world's longest working hours - thanks to Indonesian women employed here as domestic help.

Last week, Indonesia banned your citizens coming to Malaysia as maids. It's wholly understandable that your country is unhappy about the brawn drain to your neighbours, just as Malaysia is unhappy about our brain drain to Singapore.

It is a shame that we are poaching Indonesia's best talents in our pursuit of superlatives, from biggest ketupat to world's most expensive space tourist, and now our record-breaking 98-hour work week - an amazing feat attributed to Indon maids working 14 hours a day, seven days a week in Malaysian homes.

But please sir, don't ban sending maids just because you envy our success.

Instead be humble enough to learn from Malaysia so that Indonesia can eventually surpass us with your own 100-hour work week. It is our Asian values that propel Asean countries to becoming world champions in this; just compare with the backward French who have a 35-hour work week.

Mr President, let me share with you Malaysia's magic formula. Despite the Official Secrets Act, I managed to obtain the relevant information from our Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prohibition of Vice.

Relating to this data, the group editor of profitable newspaper The Star, Wong Chun Wai recently wrote: "From sexually transmitted diseases to eloping with Indonesian construction workers to sex romps in the employers' rooms, there is no end to such stories if the Indonesian press cares to do balanced reporting."

Sigh, the things that the Indonesian press don't tell you. You see, sir, if you're kept in the dark, then of course your government will not know how to overcome these distractions of STDs, elopement and sex romps that deter maids from concentrating on their target of accomplishing 98 hours of work a week.

This is how we deal with it in Malaysia. As you may already be aware, employers here will keep their maid's passport. What you're likely not aware is that when the Indon women land on our shores, Malaysian employers quickly lock them in a chastity belt. The employer then holds on to the key for safekeeping.

Both passport and chastity belt key will be returned to the maid when her contract expires.

Oops, accidents happen

Conscientious parents always childproof the nursery by putting rubber guards on corners of furniture. The parents do not leave things lying around which may hurt a young child, such as plastic bags which can cause a toddler to suffocate or small objects which can cause him to choke.

Conscientious Malaysian employers similarly maid-proof their homes by making sure that they do not leave things lying around which may hurt simple women from remote Indonesian villages. We ensure dangerous electrical appliances and sharp implements are kept away from maids.

This precautionary measure is to prevent the maids from accidentally scalding themselves with boiling water, burning themselves with hot iron, wounding themselves with scissors or bruising themselves with hammer since they don't know how to use all these tools properly.

It is an occupational hazard that sees maids sustaining those horrific injuries and scars on their bodies. Making their workplaces safer has ensured optimal performance, and that is why Indon maids in Malaysia outperform in man hours their countrywomen doing the same job in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore.

In fact, Malaysia has such high safety standards that only eight cases of physical abuse have been filed in the country since the beginning of the year, according to a report in The Star.

Yet, the international press has said that 150 complaints are lodged every month with the authorities in Indonesia, alleging ill-treatment, overwork, unpaid salaries and physical abuse whilst in Malaysia.

I suspect this discrepancy in the figures is due to Malaysians doing our Math in English. Alas, since most of us find it hard to construct a sentence in English correctly, we find it similarly hard to make numbers add up correctly.

Once our English improves, so will our Math and vice versa, claims Dr Mahathir Mohamad, whose brainchild the Math-in-English project is.

How much is she worth?

The monthly salary of an Indon maid is between RM450 and RM600.

Whereas I have calculated the value of a maid's work to be at least RM6,575. You can read how I arrived at my estimate in this article for the Centre for Policy Initiatives.

Nonetheless Mr President, you must be puzzled as to why Malaysia is only paying Indon maids a fraction of their actual worth (although we pay Filipinos slightly more). The reason is our greater love for Indonesia, for are we not brothers?

Now imagine if we gave Indonesian women a salary of RM5,000-RM6,000 ... then too many might opt to become guest workers in Malaysia. This development would surely hurt your feelings; already there is much anger that one of your most beautiful girls Manohara Odelia Pinot (left) was earlier lost to Malaysia.

Therefore, in order to 'jaga hati' - we truly don't want to make Indonesia even more jealous of us - we've deliberately underpaid maids so that we don't entice too many Indon women to come over. It is unfortunate that Singapore is not as considerate, seeing how the island republic has no qualms about enticing smart Malaysian youngsters.

The Star - a newspaper that speaks for the nation - had a 'Focus' special feature recently titled 'Indon maids better off than local blue collar workers'. The paper said: "Now, there's talk that maids need a day off every week. For many a maid, though, the only holidays they really need are the ones they get when they go home to their loved ones, flush with funds."

More than three-quarters of the said newspaper's readership do not believe that Indon maids need a rest day. It is really only through the kindness of their hearts that they insist on this arrangement. These Star people think that if maids work without any break, then your women will be able to accumulate flush funds faster, so that they can go home to their loved ones in Indonesia all the sooner.

Dear sir, I hope my explanation above has been helpful in clearing up a bit of Indonesia's misunderstanding over Malaysian treatment of maids. On my part, I'm sorry to hear about Siti and others having to go through their painful and traumatic experiences.

I hope that the Malaysian Cabinet Committee on Foreign Workers and National Repentance will apologise to you and your country. But then again, Home Minister Hishamuddin Hussein is talking tough and saying that Malaysia can shop elsewhere, and cheaper too! So perhaps not.

In any case, thank you sir for taking the time to read my letter. May I wish you all the best for the Republic of Indonesia's upcoming presidential election.

Yours sincerely,
Helen Ang

The perfect burger

I miss the US a lot these days. I guess it's understandable since I've lived there for almost half of my life. Besides good cheese, one food I miss the most about the US is the burger. What's the big deal you say? Here in Malaysia we have burger Ramly, and not to add, Mickey D's, Burger King and other burger franchises.

You see, a well-made burger is a class of its own. Ground beef made from scratch using choice meat parts, not scraps; charred and broiled to a juicy medium-rare perfection; and topped with soft and warm buns, melted cheddar, icy cold lettuce, home-made mayo, fresh sliced tomatoes, ketchup, onions, and pickles. Couple that with fresh thin-cut fries and thick pure ice cream shakes and you'll get yourself a wholesome all-American meal in all its artery-clogging splendor.

I wonder where in KL can I get this kind of burger. I guess the only way to have it is to make it myself. But the ingredients are so goddamn expensive. The last time I tried to make lasagna for the whole family it cost me almost 100 ringgit to buy the ingredients from Cold Storage. It reminds me how cheap the food in the supermarket are in the US. I just realize how spoiled I was all this time!

Woohoo... the search is over!

No, I don't mean searching for a new girlfriend or anything personal like that. Sorry to burst your bubble! I'm just so happy because I think I found the elusive research topic I've searching for all this time.

Thanks to Tamir, my former professor whose research in Malaysia I'm currently helping, I now have a concrete idea for my doctoral research. The idea came about when we were eating a late lunch at the nasi daun pisang place in Bangsar after doing a public survey around the area. We were bouncing ideas off each other until he came up with a great topic for me to study. Without going into much detail the topic is, in a nutshell, about political socialization of youths by various political parties and organizations and to track the maturation of the youths' political ideology during their formative years.

I don't know why this angle of research eluded me before since I've always been interested in youth politics. But now I've captured it there will be nothing but exciting times ahead. I had originally thought about doing a comparative study between Malaysia and Indonesia but after further talk with Tamir it seems better and more worthwhile to just focus on Indonesia. So the plan now is to study various political and social groups in Indonesia - Muslim, Christian, secular - and track the connection between their efforts at socializing the youths and the development of the youths' own political ideology.

Now I can't wait to write up my research proposal and to hopefully do an extensive fieldwork in Indonesia later. It's been a while since I was this excited about something!

The crashing trains

A Metro train crashed into the back of another Metro train in Washington, DC yesterday. This is the worst train crash in the city's history. To think that I used to take this very same train every day - the Red Line that runs between Shady Grove and Glenmont - when I was living there sends shiver down my spine. The crash site, which is near the Fort Totten station, is only one stop away from my station, Brookland-CUA. It never crossed my mind at the time that train crashes would ever happen in DC or anywhere else in the US. I know I'm now far removed from the accident but I can't help but to imagine sitting there at the back of the train while the other came barreling down the track at breakneck speed. The front and the back cars are usually the least crowded during rush hours and that was where I usually sat or stood in. Since I usually napped on my train-ride home I wouldn't have realized what was going on until it was too late. Plus, the Metro trains in DC is known to run quiet, meaning the trains all have rubberized wheels, so the passengers can barely hear the rumbles of the incoming train. Anyway, my condolence for people who are affected by this tragedy.

Researcher's block

As an academic, doing research is a life-long pursuit. It's our passion and we shouldn't feel forced into doing it. The research questions should come naturally as we get more curious about our choice topics. Well, not so much in my case right now.

Don't get me wrong. I love what I study. I'm obsessed with all things politics, on the theoretical level and as a craft. See, the thing is that I do know what I plan on focusing but I'm just not able to come up with a good research question or a thesis. Whenever I stumbled upon a decent question to ask I found out that either the question cannot be empirically answered ("operationalized" in social science term) or there's simply not enough data and sources on the ground.

I wish that this process is as easy for me as it is for other academics. I keep asking myself why is it so hard for me to come up with a simple research question for my dissertation proposal. I think part of it is that I'm currently not living in an intellectually-vibrant environment i.e. university campus and it's so hard to talk to and elicit ideas from people about my research interests. Yeah, I miss being in Madison! If I'm there right now all I have to do is walk into Dr. Mike's office and he'll talk my ears off about what I should be doing for my doctoral study. Or I can go out for coffee or dinner with my many graduate student friends and bounce ideas off of them. Nobody here in my immediate surrounding is remotely interested in my research interests or even if they are somewhat fascinated by my research focus they simply don't know much about the topic to offer any constructive inputs.

Anyway, I should just sleep this off and hopefully it'll come in my dream tonight. It doesn't help much that I've been spending hours watching "The Sopranos" DVD and all I dream about right is the various ways to whack people and eat delicious Italian food with the mobs. I'd say "Fuhgeddaboudit!"

On being a literary snob

I do consider myself a bit of an elitist when it comes to my greatest passion of all: Reading. Don't get me wrong, I love seeing a reading public and I do want to encourage more people to read books, not just magazines and newspapers. But I do somewhat judge people by the books they read. I know it's wrong but I just can't help myself. I realize that a person's book selection is personal, which leads me to believe books that one chooses to read can provide a glimpse into one's personal background and worldview. I know it's a sweeping judgment to make and I do consider this as my personal flaw I'm furiously trying to remedy.

I love watching people who read books in public - at the coffee shop, on the train or waiting for the bus, for example. So today when I was at the Starbucks in KLCC I noticed that there were a couple of young women reading novels sitting near me; I didn't see anybody else doing any reading. One of them was leafing through Meg Cabot and the other was deeply engrossed in Sophie Kinsella. The first thought that came to my mind was "Great, they're reading books BUT chick-lits? Give me a break!" Okay, I've never read any of those aforementioned books and I don't think I will anytime in the foreseeable future. Later when I got on the train to go to KL Sentral I saw one guy reading John Grisham. I mean, John Fuckin' Grisham! Oh, for Pete's sake, just kill me already!

So I was understandably a bit delighted when I saw a middle-aged looking guy standing next to me by the commuter rail was nose-deep into Emile Durkheim's "The Elementary Forms of Religious Life." Emile Durkheim was a famous French sociologist who wrote treatises on the divisions of society, the law, suicide, and religion. Okay, I know it's not your common, everyday literature but it's rare to see somebody is reading it out in the open. On the same note, I would still feel the same warm and fuzzy feeling if I ever see somebody on the train here in KL reading Doestoyevsky or Faulkner or Shakespeare or Marquez or Pramoedya. Okay, I get it, I'm a snob. There, I said it!

Disclosure: Growing up I was a big fan of sci-fi and fantasy novels especially ones by Isaac Asimov and Robert Heinlein. I also went through the "mystic" phase when I really got into Anne Rice's stuffs, especially the ones about the witches. By the way, these are the kinds of books one usually finds in many used-book stores around KL. So it's not like I have much choice when it comes to my reading selection growing up - unless, of course, if I'm into Danielle Steelle and all those Mills and Boone romantic crap that my aunt loves so much.

In defense of the un-ambitious

First I'd like to say that I'm deeply indebted to Rocket for introducing me years ago to this amazingly wonderful writer named Bill Bryson. I just love his incisive wit and quirky look on life. Seriously, this guy can describe even the most mundane thing in the world in the most liveliest term and make it into a big rolling ball of excitement. Here's an excerpt from one of his best-sellers, "A Short History of Nearly Everything," which I'm more than half-way through. It's a 500-page of rollicking-fun facts about the Earth and the universe. If one ever need a science primer, then this is the book. Of course, there are those voluminous tomes about "Life" by Stephen Jay Gould, Richard Dawkins or other evolutionary biologists but they're typically very dense. By the way, the excerpt is about the merit of being unambitious from the evolutionary point-of-view. Considering that we are now living in a hyper-competitive world, toiling in the rat-race day in and day out, this is an especially pertinent message for us humans.

"Like most things that thrive in harsh environments, lichens are slow-growing. It may take a lichen more than half a century to attain the dimensions of a shirt button... It would be hard to imagine a less fulfilling existence... It is easy to overlook this thought that life just is. As humans we are inclined to feel that life must have a point. We have plans and aspirations and desires. We want to take constant advantage of all the intoxicating existence we've been endowed with. But what's life to a lichen? Yet, it's impulse to exist, to be, is every bit as strong as ours - arguably even stronger. If I were told that I had to spend decades being a furry growth on a rock in the woods, I believe I would lose the will to go on. Lichens don't. Like virtually all living things, they will suffer any hardship, endure any insult, for a moment's additional existence. Life, in short, just wants to be. But - here's an interesting point - for the most part it doesn't want to be much.

... [Speaking of the frequent global-scale catastrophes that were the brutal facts of life for the young Earth eons ago] Fortunately, that moment hasn't happened [for our infant-like human existence - in geological time, our collective human existence is like a baby barely out of the mother's womb since the Earth is estimated to be 4.5 billion years old], but the chances are good that it will. I don't wish to interject a note of gloom just at this point, but the fact is that there is one other extremely pertinent quality about life on Earth: it goes extinct. Quite regularly. For all the trouble they take to assemble and preserve themselves, species crumple and die remarkably routinely. And the more complex they get, the more quickly they appear to go extinct. Which is perhaps one reason why so much of life isn't terribly ambitious."

See, there's a good reason on not being productive and to lead a gloriously unambitious life. So next time if people mention how slothful you are and how your existence on this god's green acre is merely a waste of a good space, tell them that you are simply preparing for the doomsday event when a 50-mile wide meteor hit the Earth and that you'll be one of the few remaining survivors. Nothing beats the vindicated feeling of being able to utter the post-apocalyptic words of "I told you so!" - even though there will be hardly anybody around to tell it to.