me, xiao yuan (maid) and the son (tony)

my maid, xiao yuan (seen here) invited me over to her house for dinner on sunday nite. this past weekend was the chinese mid-autumn festival. traditionally they eat moon cakes, return to one's maternal family and look at the moon. since my maternal family wasn't accessible (but i did eat my fill of moon cakes) she invited me over for a fine home cooked meal at her house. i was thrilled.

it has been difficult to find chinese friends here in nanjing who are willing to invite me to their homes and hang out. she loves to cook and she loves to have guests. her 16yr old son, Tony, lives with her in a small apartment across town. her husband passed about 3 years ago from stomach cancer. she is raising her son on her own and working hard to do so ~ which is why she works full-time then 2 apartments on the side (for about $1.25 a cleaning). some have asked me if everyone in china has a maid, no, but my landlord recommended her and when told the situation and the price i couldn't not hire her.

her apartment is about 1/4 size of any apartment i've ever lived in, but it was comfortable and clean. she and i are still going the laundry rounds (i sneak wash all my whites when she isn't around and give her a few things here and there to wash), but we are becoming friends. it's fun.

since i have to boil my water for drinking water, when i get low on drinking water i will run a big kettle of water on the stove. last week i turned on the kettle to boil one morning and got on with my things then left - completely forgetting about the kettle. by the grace of God, xiao yuan happened to come over to my house at noon to do the daily cleaning (she always comes at 5pm ~ never had she come at noon before). of course the kettle's water was all boiled out and the place was starting to fill with burning kettle fumes.

i didn't know that this had happened, but when i came home later that day the "sup" at the front gate pointed his finger at me and yelled "YOU! you left the water to boil and forgot and almost burned the place down! this is very dangerous! don't boil water anymore, let your maid do it." and some more chinese scolding that i don't need to write. i apologized profusely (multiple times ~ so sorry, so embarrasing, my face is gone.... etc) i asked if my neighbor knew, he said she didn't, however the landlord had been told. that's when i knew i would have to go through 2 more scolding sessions before the ordeal was over.

sure enough, the next day i was at the Sun Yat Sen memorial with my students and i get the call from the landlord. she was nicer, but did her duty in reminding me to not leave the gas stove burning and to make sure and lock the place up. (again lots of apol0gies ~ so sorry, so embarrasing, my face is gone.... etc) then i waited for my maid's turn. the next day i ran into her at my apartment. she told me how she had come over and found the near fire situation, how it was so dangerous and that she was very scared of house fires (who isn't??) and then pointed in my face and said "You are a VERY lucky person." i couldn't disagree. (again lots of apol0gies ~ so sorry, so embarrasing, my face is gone.... etc)

so now i'm the nice, but inept foreigner who can't even boil water. however, now that i've had the 3 scoldings they have let it go and i am hyper aware of the kettle whenever i put water onto boil.