PhD thesis final - Royal Holloway, University of London

Chapter 4- Home, domesticity and belonginghas to leave a room as soon as her job is done. Not to mention, she won‘t stay in the roomwe are together. Most of the time, we do not see her, but only hear the sound she makesfrom doing chores. It is quite strange cos I know someone is there but don‘t see her often.(Fieldwork diary, 26/04/2007)The scheduled working hours and restrictive spatial movement are also applied to thePRC Chinese tutor who is asked to do the tutorial in a given time period and in anassigned room:At 9:00 am, tutor came and my hostess greeted him and gave him a pair of indoor slippers.He was then led to the study room and my hostess went to prepare a drink for him. It tookno more than five minutes. He then stayed in the study for three hours apart from going tobathroom. The tutorial was finished at 12 pm when he left the room and went straightly tothe front door. The family said thanks to him and saw him off.(Fieldwork diary, 19/05/2007)The PRC Chinese employees‘ restrictive spatial movement and the use of certain spaceand the scheduled household routines not only allow Taiwanese master/mistress tosupervise or oversee them easily, but are also easy for them to arrange their family livesand activities around. Besides, to ensure that family life is not disturbed my respondentswill also have a set of house rules to regulate their Chinese workers‘ activities. Forexample, I was told by my respondents that they do not allow A Yi to enter certain rooms,such as the room where valuable objects or safe deposit are placed, unless they have themaster/mistress‘s company, to ensure their valuable possessions are secured. As Betty(housewife who lives in a local gated community in Shanghai, in her 40s) explained tome:160