I’m adding a few more Tai Tai descriptions to my list;

Tradeoff Tai Tai-has found the shopping and the mahjong’s boring and took up a part time job.  She’s earning a nice little income and enjoys the work.  It’s only part time but fulfilling.  She mixes with locals and has a different slant on living in Asia.  She maybe doing something related to her career but chances it is something completely different like relocation work, teaching English or selling over priced products to her fellow expatriate. 

Trying it On Tai Tai – she has had a maid – frustrated by the experience and has gone out on her own.  She is trying to do it all, the shopping, ironing, picking up the kids, homework, entertainment, laundry and after 4 months she’s out there looking for another maid.  Trying it On Tai Tai’s don’t last – they come to the conclusion it’s too hard to do ‘it’ without a maid be it part time or full time – most Tai Tai’s need a maid.

Tai Tai in Training – you always recognize these ones.  They have a stunned rabbit look and headlights for eyes.  Everything is new, exciting and wonderful.  One of my friends called them “fresh meat” because that’s how they were still oozing with enthusiasm – or as she said ‘blood’. Lasts about 2 months then they hit the wall and realize the maids a headache, the husband’s never around to talk to and their newest buddy just got notice they are being relocated to a new place.  They have plans to learn the language, go to the gym regularly, buy new furniture, and learn to play mahjong and definitely mix with the locals.  Wrong … most of it wears off and they put on weight, get frustrated with the language, hate mahjong, and quickly learn that locals will never ask them over.  

Master Tai Tai – she’s probably lived somewhere else in Asia – done this before and is married to an Expert Expat.  By now she knows which maid will be a valuable member of the family, have extensive Asian furniture and doesn’t need another piece but will still buy some.  She has the cooking mastered and can teach you a thing or two from a city she once lived in.  Plus she’s got connection is every other Asian town, so you need to talk to her before you travel.  She’s a good Tai Tai to get to know, but she may not warm to your initially because by now she has hardened and knows that most of her fellow Tai Tai expats do not stay around too long.  They move on, just like she will one day.

Following on from my previous Tai Tai blog here are my thoughts on being a Temporary and Turnabout Tai Tai;

Temporary Tai Tai - probably has been in the work force for a number of years.  She now no longer is employed.  She is a mom, and takes the children to the bus for the first few months and then realize they can leave it to the maid.  After all that’s why you have a maid. 

Temporary Tai Tai’s definitely enjoy tennis, lunches and shopping sprees in Shenzen or Bangkok.  She will be a member of expatriate women’s organization and has a husband that travels a lot.  That’s why he encourages her to enjoy the lifestyle and not work. 

Guilt runs along the belly of this wife. These are her sins: she is guilty of having the maid to look after the kids, guilty of no longer bringing in extra income, and guilty of spending husbands COLA (cost of living adjustment) …. And any other guilt you can think of. 

She will eventually have to give up this lifestyle and return to washing, ironing and cooking but for the moment she will ENJOY the guilt.

Turnabout Tai Tai – it’s just her and her husband here. She refuses to have a full time maid but still has the part time maid who does the basics and frees up her life. The part time maid probably cleans house, and prepares at least one meal for reheating later in the day. 

This Tai Tai travels more, plays bridge on Tuesdays, Mahjong on Friday, eats out Saturday night, takes up Golf in the winter and goes home in the summer to visit the grandchildren.

She continuously buys furniture and considers her life perfect and easier than the Temporary Expat because she doesn’t really have the same worries on her return home.  After all when she goes home, she can still have a cleaner come once a week, and buy pre-made meals at her favorite store Costco!

As one woman said to me recently ‘a woman can never have enough shoes’.  I hope my husband never reads this article because it might explain that rather large charge on the Visa card back in June.

I was so depressed one day over the attitude of a clerk in the Department of Motor Vehicle here in Hong Kong – I just had to go by the Todd’s shoe store and buy a couple pairs of shoes.  I guess it was a fit of depression or a moment of insanity or just call it being female.  I had to do it.

I like many of my other female friends have a pertinacity to buy shoes.  I have them in all shapes and sometimes I think even sizes.  And as a female accomplice in the shoe department said to me the other day – you can NEVER have enough black shoes.  Ah a woman of my own hearts (or is that foot fetish).

But here in Hong Kong I am gravely punished unless it’s the Todd’s shoe store in Pacific Place.  I have trouble buying shoes.  Now unlike some of my friends who despair that a size 10 is unheard of here in Hong Kong, I suffer from the other end.  My shoe size is a mere 35 or 5 B.  Sure I can find them here but I have a wide foot and that is something that tends not to be catered for here in Hong Kong.

I have to seek high and low.  That’s how I found Todd’s and also just down the road in Happy Valley those wonderful stores that do shoes made to order.  Aren’t I just the lucky duck.  But better than that I always seem to come up with an excuse when I’m travelling that I just ‘need’ another pair of shoes.

So recently in Hawaii, Liberty department store had a sale and I agreed to meet my friend in, where else, the shoe department.  As I was waiting my toes were twitching and like a drug user I needed a fix.  I happily succumbed to a new pair of backless Black sandals.  What a treat, I would never find these practical sandals in Hong Kong.  It seems the fashion here, the last three years has been sandals but they are made for small slim feet, and look like stilettos.  These shoes are not something you can easily maneuver in or easily walk the pavement in ‘under construction’ Hong Kong.

Ah but I have to say a good shoe sale, or a bit of depression easily over come in any shoe department is good for the sole (excuse the pun) and good for my happier disposition in Hong Kong.