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Hahaha nice story! It makes me realize I should be really happy with the lady I’ve got right now 🙂 Also one of the few moments I actually practice speaking Chinese without being drunk. I took her over from the previous owner of my apartment, and they were somewhat befriended. He went to her wedding or something.
The first time she came here after I took over the place, she accidently came into my room while I was still sleeping, and she was completely shocked hahah. Tons of apoligies! Couple of weeks later she just started walking in every Tuesday, waking me up, and laughing at me because I’m still in bed!
Hahaha nice story! It makes me realize I should be really happy with the lady I’ve got right now 🙂 Also one of the few moments I actually practice speaking Chinese without being drunk. I took her over from the previous owner of my apartment, and they were somewhat befriended. He went to her wedding or something.
The first time she came here after I took over the place, she accidently came into my room while I was still sleeping, and she was completely shocked hahah. Tons of apoligies! Couple of weeks later she just started walking in every Tuesday, waking me up, and laughing at me because I’m still in bed!
I assume you’re speaking about many Japanese’ ability to pay attention to detail and do something well, as opposed to as-above-mentioned 大陆人 general ability to care little about their work and pay little attention to cleanliness or quality control?
I assume you’re speaking about many Japanese’ ability to pay attention to detail and do something well, as opposed to as-above-mentioned 大陆人 general ability to care little about their work and pay little attention to cleanliness or quality control?
1 it is not about ability but sense of clean,most cleaners are not from a decent family,for their training(maybe not) or experience, the standard of “clean” is “no trash”,and not so many customs gave higher requirements. so once you find a cleaner with professional equitment and clean job is perfect，the premise would be one of them: (1) he/she is quite clear about the expectation of the customer (2) he/she knows the higher clean standard by training of experience (3)he/she is the person who always works beyond expectation.
2 Japanese wife is just joke, they are famous for the housework. I mean once you are complaining the present situation and it can not be changed easily,why not change the option,Charlie’s cleaner or clean it yourself
3 It is the fact that some Asia country such as Japan,Singapore more developing and more clean
4 it is a market-driven time, hope the clean in China can get improved
1 it is not about ability but sense of clean,most cleaners are not from a decent family,for their training(maybe not) or experience, the standard of “clean” is “no trash”,and not so many customs gave higher requirements. so once you find a cleaner with professional equitment and clean job is perfect，the premise would be one of them: (1) he/she is quite clear about the expectation of the customer (2) he/she knows the higher clean standard by training of experience (3)he/she is the person who always works beyond expectation.
2 Japanese wife is just joke, they are famous for the housework. I mean once you are complaining the present situation and it can not be changed easily,why not change the option,Charlie’s cleaner or clean it yourself
3 It is the fact that some Asia country such as Japan,Singapore more developing and more clean
4 it is a market-driven time, hope the clean in China can get improved
Is anyone interested in finding – sharing – recommending or generally cooperating in finding an ayi or cleaner. I’m north of downtown inside the first ring road.
I guess going through the expat/wife’s/mothers/womens club would be a good route for the south. but less so for up north.
Please post or PM me if you are.
Is anyone interested in finding – sharing – recommending or generally cooperating in finding an ayi or cleaner. I’m north of downtown inside the first ring road.
I guess going through the expat/wife’s/mothers/womens club would be a good route for the south. but less so for up north.
Please post or PM me if you are.
I’m also on the lookout for a good ayi. Did anyone have any luck so far?
Hired an ayi for a one-off cleaning through my housing agent when I first moved in. 1-bedroom apartment/ 83 sqm at 70rmb for 3-4 hours. I had to do half her work so that we could finish up. Upon inspection of the areas she took charge of, it dawned upon me that her idea of cleaning simply involved wiping things down with a piece of cloth, including the bathroom. I found dust balls underneath the wash basin, on the wall skirting, dead insects at the window sill, soap scum in the shower stall. Argh…
Since then, I have been doing the cleaning myself once a week, which can be a real pain at times.
I recently ditched mine. I used to pay 50RMB for about 2 hours. After I took in 2 roommates (a couple, so they share the extra room), she suddenly said she wanted 100RMB for those 2 hours because more people = more work. Plus she said it’s still less for each person.
I told her she was crazy to ask for 100RMB to clean 2 hours. She didn’t really understand it’s too much since we are laowai and 100/3=33rmb a person. We offered her 75RMB and she accepted it with a very long face. After 2 weeks we realized that she did not have more work AT ALL since we did some of the work ourselves. She also isn’t afraid of leaving after 1.5hours, or just coming way too late and rushing through the place with a mop (without even going in the bedrooms).
I told her she gets 50RMB again or she could go, and she gave me the keys back 🙂
1 week later we get a message from her that she needs the key back and that she won’t make it his week?? Forget it, lol.
I gave up and clean myself now.
Too spoiled from Beijing.
I cant pay triple the rate compared to Beijing just for getting my stuff swiped with a dirty rug coming from a bucket of dirty water.
The hilarity of this continues to baffle. Now I know why Chengdu is so dirty… It can’t find a good cleaner!!
It’s the same for me in the north of CD. I have an Ayi who is also the Ayi at the school where I work (big mistake – how to fire her and still maintain Guanxi? I suppose I could tell her I found a girlfriend who likes to clean and I won’t need her anymore). She comes in once a week for about 90 minutes or 2 hours and I pay her 60 kwai. She washes my clothes (and, with much instruction, hangs them so they will dry semi-wrinkle free), washes any dishes she sees lying dirty, and slaps dirty water all around my 90+ sq.m. flat. I had to buy better mops and try to teach her the concept of scrubbing. It still hasn’t totally taken, and when I walk around barefoot, after more than 5 months of her “cleaning”, the soles of my feet are black within minutes. She still basically thinks getting the floors wet qualifies as clean!
Once I dipped my finger in the dirty water, and I realized that she wasn’t even using hot water to clean with. So that was another lesson I had to give. I’ll have to spot-check that soon, I guess. I had been paying her extra to give the floors an “extra-hard” mopping, but when I realized I was paying for nothing, in fact, I dropped her back down to the usual rate (much to her disappointment).
She’s not a bad lady, just a simple country soul whose concept of clean is “no visible dirt or trash”. If I get a wet cloth and rub it on the floor and it comes up black, she is always shocked, and immediately begins to protest, as if I’d played some dirty laowai trick on her industrious ass.
Bottom line: the local concept of clean is fundamentally different than what you are probably used to back home. Either get used to it, clean yourself, or be prepared to spend a significant amount of time trying to train your Ayi, with mixed results.
And I’m about trained out with this model. If anyone in the Jinniu/Chengsha area has a good/potentially good Ayi to recommend/share/train together, please contact me.
looks like we are all in the same boat. perhaps someone here would be kind enough to start a cleaning services company to help us poor souls?
Quote:perhaps someone here would be kind enough to start a cleaning services company to help us poor souls?I’d given this some serious thought, having ran a high spec construction cleaning firm back in the UK. Trouble is the more thought I gave it, the more it seemed like a bad idea. It would take a serious effort to put together a crew and train them up to standard in the first place, and then I’d fully expect them to scarper and set up shop for themselves. Either by way of paranoia or foresight, I opted for ‘no thanks’.
it’s untrue (and a little offensive?) to say that cleaning standards are lower amongst Chinese. For example, i remember visiting the house of my ex’s parents, and being blown away by the pristine condition of what was a very large and reasonably old home. When ased if they used a maid i was told no, both parents do the cleaning. Similar story with one of my neighbors here. Maybe the reason these cleaning ladies do such a half-assed job is cos it’s not their own place, so they figure why bust my stones (or ass for women)for some rich and ungrateful foreigner?
You wanna recruit cleaners? Scope out the 5 star hotels here. But you want one of those ladies/men, be prepared to pay a bit more…
Quote:Maybe the reason these cleaning ladies do such a half-assed job is cos it’s not their own place, so they figure why bust my stones (or ass for women)for some rich and ungrateful foreigner?Umm, so does that mean all us lucky laowai’s (yourself included!) should completely accept the norm of a paid cleaner showing up and willfully performing a half arsed job, then returning to their apparently pristine homes and having a good laugh on us!?
Perhaps my standards are higher, but I haven’t seen an unequivocally pristine kept apartment complex yet, and I’ve been through many over the last 18 months. I’ve seen some that came close, but had I wanted to I could have picked holes in the place. This is a common theme, and this thread supports that so far, unless of course as you suggest all these cleaners are indeed unscrupulous souls interested only in swishing dirty water about the abodes of all us ungrateful foreigners, and scalping us for cash!!
;D
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