When Yusni graduated from high school in West Java at the age of 17, she faced a tough job market with few openings that would allow her to help support her family or save money to go to college.
Yusni moved to Taiwan to work as a caregiver after hearing from a friend about her experience in the nation.
“The person I am now is much different from the person I was before,” said Yusni, 26, on Tuesday last week as she looked back over her nine years in Taiwan.
Photo: CNA
Speaking in Mandarin, Yusni — who like many Indonesians goes by a single name — said that when she first arrived, she had no direction in life except to work hard to send money home.
It was only when she made more Taiwanese friends and took advantage of being in Taiwan to enrich herself that her outlook on life began to change, she said.
After making Taiwanese friends and having discussions with them on “sensitive” topics that were not talked about among her Indonesian friends, Yusni said she became more of a critical thinker, she said.
For example, when Taiwanese friends questioned Islamic teachings, she would think about whether what they said was justified, something she never did in the past, because she had always been taught to accept her religious teachings, she said.
In her first four years in Taiwan, Yusni had few chances to make friends with Taiwanese, because she had to work almost around the clock caring for an elderly woman with dementia and whose children lived abroad, she said.
That changed in the fifth year when the woman was put in a nursing home, which enabled her to have a regular day off every month, instead of a day off every three months as was the case previously, she said.
By that time, her relationship with the person in her care was excellent, but it did not start out that way, she said.
Communication was challenging because the woman spoke with a strong Chinese accent and she knew very little Mandarin, Yusni said.
However, they became close after Yusni learned how to better accommodate the challenging behavioral problems associated with the disease.
The woman passed away in February 2017 after seven years in Yusni’s care.
When an elderly woman she was hired to care for died of an illness in May the same year, Yusni told her agent she wanted to go back to Indonesia.
However, the sorrow felt by the late woman’s husband over the loss of his wife made her change her mind, she said.
“Grandpa’s children all went back to their homes after grandma’s funeral service. He locked himself in his room and cried,” Yusni said. “I was thinking: ‘It would be very unkind of me to leave grandpa under the circumstances.’ So I stayed.”
In the past 22 months, Yusni has accompanied the now 95-year-old man on visits to many places that are meaningful to him.
Although there was still a year remaining on her contract, Yusni is to return to Indonesia to work, hoping to preserve her memory of the elderly man while he was still healthy and active, she said.
Despite the pain of saying goodbye to her friends in Taiwan, Yusni said she is looking forward to embarking on a new life.
Her native-level proficiency in Mandarin earned Yusni job offers from two companies based in Indonesia before she returned and she finalized a position with one of them last month.
However, the opportunities that await her will not erase the memories of her years in Taiwan, she said.
“I will return to Taiwan to complete my dream of traveling around Taiwan,” said Yusni, who returned to Indonesia on Friday last week.
NATIONAL SECURITY: Authorities are working to confirm the identities of the military personnel involved and investigating possible illegal conduct and regulatory violations Authorities are probing possible national security implications after Kinmen police and immigration officers on Sunday found a Chinese woman allegedly posing as a tourist while engaging in prostitution involving more than 10 military personnel. The woman, surnamed Chen (陳), has since been deported, authorities said, adding that investigators are still working to confirm the identities of those implicated, as the records only listed code names and aliases. The case stemmed from a report received by the Kinmen District Prosecutors’ Office on Friday last week from the Jinhu Precinct of the Kinmen County Police Bureau. On Sunday, police, along with the National Immigration
STAY COOL: The HPA recommended that people stay hydrated, use air-conditioning or fans while indoors, wear loose-fitting clothes and walk in the shade while outdoors Employers must implement measures such as installing cooling equipment, and providing drinking water and rest breaks for outdoor workers starting from Monday next week, the Taipei Department of Labor said on Sunday. Employers who fail to comply could face fines of NT$30,000 to NT$300,000 under the Occupational Safety and Health Act (職業安全衛生法), the department said. Businesses in Taipei employing fewer than 100 workers, as well as registered self-employed workers with labor insurance coverage, could receive on-site assessments and guidance from occupational safety consultants to help them apply for central government subsidies to implement or improve heat-protection measures, it said. Under the Ministry of
GLOBALGIVING: ‘ Caving to external pressure is not acceptable for an organization that has cultivated justice reform and human rights for 30 years,’ one NGO said A slew of non-government organizations (NGOs) have withdrawn from the GlobalGiving fundraising platform after it announced it would use “Chinese Taipei” instead of “Taiwan” from next month. The Taiwan Good Rice Association wrote on Facebook on Friday that it was informed on April 28 via a teleconference call of the change, which was made because the platform wanted to operate in China. Taiwan Good Rice is to terminate all cooperative relationships with GlobalGiving in response to the platform’s “unilateral and non-negotiable” decision to remove references to Taiwan, the NGO said. “Taiwan is in the official name of Taiwan Good Rice Association and the
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday briefed her party’s Central Standing Committee regarding her scheduled visit to the US between Monday next week and June 16, saying that her purpose would be to persuade the US that the Republic of China (ROC) Constitution was a “one China” constitution that would foster stable and peaceful cross-strait relations. The ROC Constitution is the most important defense for all Taiwanese citizens, as it upholds our democracy and has contributed to our robust economy, which aligns with international and US interests, she said. “We would not be troublemakers and drag the US under,”
RSS