Sriwatin’s day starts at around 6am, when she gets up to help the 80-year-old mother of her laobanniang, or female boss. She helps “A-ma” get dressed and prepares her breakfast.
Before the rest of the family wakes up and gets ready for school or work, Sriwatin has started her daily cleaning routine, beginning with sweeping the floor.
The rest of the day she spends helping her boss in the kitchen and caring for A-ma. Sriwatin helps A-ma take her meals, go out for walks and shower. Before going to bed she does the family’s laundry and hangs it out to dry.
Sriwatin is one of around 128,000 Indonesian workers in Taiwan. At age 31, she is married and has one child, who is back home in Indonesia with her husband. Sriwatin came to Taiwan alone four months ago to work as a caregiver. Like many others from Southeast Asian countries, she came in the hope of building a better life for her family.
Figures from the Council of Labor Affairs indicate that 111,000 of Indonesian workers in Taiwan are employed as caregivers and housekeepers, around 13,000 work on assembly lines and the rest work in agriculture, on fishing boats, or as construction workers.
“Sometimes I get very tired and I take short naps here and there. I’ve cried a couple of times, too, when I missed my family a lot or when I felt insulted when A-ma yelled at me for something I didn’t do,” Sriwatin said in an interview earlier this month. “But it’s okay, it’s no big deal.”
One reason Sriwatin can deal with harsh words from A-ma is because her boss knows she isn’t at fault and often comforts her, she said. Sriwatin is also determined to make money for her family and says she knows there are many challenges involved.
This isn’t Sriwatin’s first time working abroad. Before coming to Taiwan, she spent six years in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait working as a housekeeper and caregiver.
“I made some money there and with that money I bought a small plot of land back home and my husband is growing coffee on it now,” Sriwatin said with a smile.
She hopes to spend three years in Taiwan and then go home.
“Hopefully I’ll have saved up enough money to do business at home,” she said.
Twenty-four-year-old Annie, another Indonesian worker employed as a caregiver, has dreams too.
Her parents make little as farmers and her three siblings are still in school. Her job in Taiwan is helping her support the family.
“I’m from a small farming village not far from Jakarta,” Annie said as she waited for a friend outside an Indonesian grocery store near Taipei Railway Station. “I couldn’t find a job in Indonesia, so I came to Taiwan.”
“This is actually my second time in Taiwan. I worked in Taiwan for two-and-a-half years taking care of an A-ma and went home after she passed away,” Annie said. “After staying home for a while I chose to come back to Taiwan about four months ago and I’m taking care of an A-kong [grandfather] this time.”
The man in Annie’s care is hospitalized and Annie stays in the hospital with him.
“My friends and I hang out about once every month, we go shopping or just have fun with other Indonesians,” she said. “I like Taiwan a lot because everything is so exciting here.”
But there’s a downside too, Annie said.
“Things are too expensive in Taiwan,” she said. “And for us Muslims, who don’t eat pork, it can be hard to find food.”
Observing Muslim practices can be difficult for a lot of Indonesian workers.
Sriwatin is also worried about accidently eating pork.
“Not long after I started working, I told laobanniang about the no-pork rule and said that if she still gives me pork, it would be she who has sinned, not me,” Sriwatin said.
Sutini, another caregiver from Indonesia, said she sometimes finds it difficult to observe Ramadan, the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, during which Muslims are not allowed to eat or drink during the day.
“I still need to work and still need to cook for my boss’ family during the day” in the month of Ramadan, she said. “So I get very hungry and sometimes I just take a break from observing the fast, but I always make it up later.”
Another caregiver who wished to remain anonymous said difficulties because of the cultural and religious differences between Indonesia and Taiwan were inevitable.
“But as long as you can look for help and communicate with your employer,” she said, it will work out.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique