MCLC: The Amahs

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The Amahs
Source: The Guardian (2/28/15)
The amahs: China’s sisterhood of quiet pioneers
By Roger Lee
Hong Kong movies have made sharp-tongued caricatures of amahs, the women who left the mainland to make a living as housemaids. Roger Lee explains why he wrote a play to celebrate their independence and tenacity
Debunking stereotypes … a scene from The Amahs by Roger Lee and Wong Wing Sze. Photograph: Angus Chan
The amahs were women who left rural China for Hong Kong in the late 1940s to find work as live-in housemaids in wealthy households. They moved there alone and took work in this strange new city to support their families back at home. In Hong Kong, amahs were seen as subordinates; they had come from poor villages on the mainland and, having had no access to education, endured a life of illiteracy. To my mind, though, they were brave pioneers ahead of their time. They strove for independence, resisted relying on men and eschewed marriage, dedicating themselves instead to the amah sisterhood and to a life of hard work. Their resilience and sheer strength has always impressed me: here was a group of women who fought against their inherited social suppression in a male-dominated society, and dared to celebrate their independence from men, financially and emotionally.
My own amah, Taojie, worked for our family from the age of 13 for more than 60 years, until she had a stroke. She witnessed the ups and downs of five generations of the Lee family, including my grandmother, my parents, my sister and me, my sister’s son and then her grandson.
Two years after Taojie’s death, as a tribute to her lifetime devotion to our family, I began the first draft of what was to become the film A Simple Life, which was based on my relationship with her after her stroke. At that point, the intention was that it would be a workshop piece of a two-act play with two main characters (Roger and Taojie) set in three locations (my home in Mei Foo, the nursing home and the hospital ward). At film director Ann Hui’s suggestion, the draft evolved into a full-length feature. It was a great thrill to see Deanie Ip receive the best actress award at the Venice film festival in 2011, for her portrayal of my amah.
Best-actress winner at Venice … Deanie Ip in A Simple Life.
I have always felt a greater passion for the theatre than for the cinema. Two years ago, after directing a documentary on the subject of retired amahs, women now in their 80s and 90s, I started to do further research on the subject. Their stories were remarkable. I felt such admiration for them. These were not loud and extravagant lives; these were quiet lives of strength and bravery. Even though the odds were seemingly stacked against them, the amahs I spoke to were tenacious and endlessly creative. They told me how they had worked hard to improve their self-worth, acquiring new skills, learning languages such as English and Japanese, and finding ways to survive the vicissitudes of life in Hong Kong.
There were six kinds of amahs, each defined by their role in domestic service. I spoke to amahs who had been in service to one household for up to 60 years. They spoke warmly about these adopted families. Their selfless devotion meant they sacrificed a private life, and romance, to concentrate on financially supporting their own families on the mainland. They told stories of a kind of altruism that is almost unimaginable these days.
I showed my story treatment to playwright Wong Wing Sze. To my delight, Sze wanted to collaborate with me to develop it into a full-scale script. During our script meetings, we decided that our portrayal of the amahs would be different from their portrayal in Hong Kong movies as mostly comical caricatures – sharp-tongued women who frowned on men. Our three amahs are flesh-and-blood characters, each with a true-to-life tale to tell.
Playwright Roger Lee.Photograph: Chris Chan
In the play, we see our three protagonists arriving in Hong Kong in the 1950s; they are in their early 20s and full of hope and expectation. Those early years were relatively content and carefree as Hong Kong emerged from postwar poverty. Then, in the 60s, the Great Chinese Famine brought the tough facts of life into sharper relief, and many amahs had to work hard in order to send food and money to their families. The boom-and-bust 70s were a rollercoaster decade, as economic boom raised false hopes of wealth and security, only to be followed by the stock market crash.
In this production, the story of the three amahs is told by a high-flying career woman in modern-day Hong Kong. Even today, Chinese society condemns anyone who does not conform to accepted norms. Any single woman over a certain age is regarded as a marginal social outcast. Sze and I also wanted to debunk these outdated stereotypes, and celebrate the joys of a single and independent life – both then and now.
• The Amahs by Roger Lee and Wong Wing Sze is at the Hong Kong arts festival from 28 February to 15 March.
by denton.2 at osu.edu on February 28, 2015
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