Have you ever heard of an ayi??????
I had never heard of the term until we started preparing for our expat assignment seven months ago.
What the heck is an ayi??? This is what I can tell you thus far: they're kind of like a maid but they can also cook, watch your children, do your ironing and do a variety of other helpful things. It kind of depends on the family's needs and wishes and the desires and abilities of the particular ayi. We mostly hired an ayi to clean our house, do some light cooking (one meal per week) and help with odds and ends. She is also helping me learn Chinese and I hope that she will also teach me how to cook Chinese meals. Boy, does she giggle at my pronunciation of Chinese words! It does have me wondering what the heck she thinks I'm saying!?! (Chinese is a tricky language for us Westeners to learn because it is a tonal language. There are four tones. That means for one word you can say it four different ways and it can mean completely different things with each tone. The tough part is that most of us Westeners have trouble hearing the different tones. I know I can't!)
The best part – having an ayi is completely affordable here!!!! For me this is one of the biggest perks of living in China!!!! There is NO WAY I could afford to have this Back Home.
Oh, just to let you know…our ayi only speaks a handful of words in English. That combined with my handful of Chinese words and the most wonderful iPhone app of all- Google Translate- we somehow manage to communicate. Or not, as often the case might be. It also,sadly, means she can't tell me what she's buying or looking for. For instance, on a recent trip to a supermarket with her, she bought something that looked like a bunch of tall cut grass from the vegetable aisle and I really wanted to know what it was. I never did figure it out. Darn!
As our ayi only started three weeks ago we're still in the adjustment phase. And one of things we needed to adjust were our cleaning supplies and the cooking supplies for the Chinese meal the ayi was planning to prepare later that day.
Hey!
Want to go shopping with me and my ayi??!
Dang!!! Look at all the sauces to choose from!!! (and there are several aisles of all kinds of sauces for sale). She picked up four bottles from these shelves. One of them was labeled "edible vinegar". I'm so glad it's clearly labeled!!!! She also picked up something that I can only assume is oyster sauce since the bottle had a picture of oysters on it. (nice deduction, Sherlock!)
By the way, we're shopping at E-Mart today. Or in Chinese it's sounds something like "eee- my – duh" (and please don't ask me about the tones since I don't have a clue!) . Even though the sign clearly says E-Mart in GIGANTIC letters they don't call it that.
And across that aisle we have more shelves loaded with sauces (I think are mostly soy sauce type sauces). Our cart is already loaded with cleaning supplies.
Here she's picking out chicken for part of our meal. That giant tray of chicken is sitting on a bed of ice. (yes, I checked!)
What are those things wrapped in plastic???
Oh my! Whole plucked birds….with heads!!! EEEPPPP!!!!! (peep?)
Ayi is checking out the shrimp selection while I browse the fish department.
Sea kelp anyone? Seriously….I think that's what is in the box on the right.
More fishies on ice.
Oooo….squid and clams!!!
Not a clue what the light yellow stuff is….something dredged up from the bottom of the ocean?
The Chinese do love having their seafood ULTRA fresh. You can pick out live fish from the tank to eat. I haven't seen anyone buy these so I'm not sure how it works (if they kill the fish or if you take it home alive and have to deal with it). Do you see the (apparently edible) non-fish creature in the tank? It's a turtle. Somehow I just can't picture myself eating a turtle.