The Woman of My Dreams

I just met the woman of my dreams.

She is a Chinese woman from Hangzhou, a smaller city about 2 hours west of Shanghai, and recently named the most beautiful city in China by the national government. She is 35 years old and both reads and writes English, as well as speaking quite well. She likes both of my kids, and they both like her. She seems quite smart and gave background on Chinese pictures on our wall and the poetry they referred to.

And she wants to work for us.

I mentioned a few months ago that I have decided to hire an ayi, someone to clean, help me shop, and make Shanghai a much easier place to live. We decided to put this off until March, because we spent more of December out of town than in. We will be here for all of January, but away all of February. And for Chinese New Year in February, it is customary to pay your ayi double their monthly salary, much akin to a Christmas bonus in the states. So, had we hired someone at the beginning of December, we would have paid 4 months salary for 6 weeks of work.

Our friend Brad connected us to this woman, and we met her this week. She has obstacles to overcome if she will help us, so this is no guarantee. But for my sake, I hope she will make the move!