A domestic aunt who wanders and writes in 39 employers' homes.

Is it ridiculous or even absurd for a domestic servant over 50 to want to write freely during his break?

After being laid off in the northeast, Yin drifted to the north alone and has been engaged in domestic work for 16 years.

Writing gave her a world of her own. But because of this hobby, she needs to make more concessions when looking for a job. However, "as long as I can read and write, I can stick to it."

British writer Woolf said that women need money and a room of their own to write. And these two things, Yin did not.

There are 35 million domestic workers in China, most of whom are women. Behind Yin is the story of a group of sisters. They move between urban families and endure the looming discrimination and injustice.

Yin's longest pen name is "dust", as small as dust, perhaps lighter than dust.

But even if it is just a grain of dust, it is eager to have its own direction.

Author-Meng Ying

Editor-Living in the South

Content Director-Wei Wu

At half past six, Yin gets up on time, and the 98-year-old man will wake up in half an hour.

She takes care of him to get dressed, go to the toilet and wash. After breakfast, first help the elderly get oxygen on the sofa, then clean the kitchen and bathroom, and then give the elderly medicine.

"500ml of nutrient solution, one bowl in the morning and one bowl in the afternoon, and then feed him a kiwi."

It's cold, there's no need to take the old man for a walk. Yin remembered that the old man's daughter sent ten Jin of mustard yesterday, which was just washed and cut to make pickles for the whole family to eat.

This is the first 16 year that Yin came to Beijing to be a domestic worker, and it is also the 39th employer's family that she has experienced.

She is very satisfied with this family. Because the employer agrees, as long as it doesn't affect her work, she can write in her own rest time.

Yin and the elderly share a room, each with a bed, which is convenient for night care. At eight o'clock in the evening, the old man went to sleep, and Yin started his day.

The old man had a lot of medicine, so she carefully unpacked the discarded medicine boxes and instructions, spread them out, and laid a grid on them as manuscript paper for the first draft. After writing an article, enter the memo of the mobile phone word by word.

Sometimes she goes to the kitchen to write something, and there is a socket at the table to charge her mobile phone. Old people always say, how nice it is for you to write in the study. She thought about it and didn't go.

For Yin, there are many things to write. Writing about hometown, father, outing with domestic sisters and feelings about life are mostly published in a female worker's official WeChat account.

Besides writing, she also loves reading, and she likes He Wei's Jiangcheng best.

On 20 19, Yin participated in the "rooting" writing plan for domestic workers. Few students can persist in finishing their homework. She is one.

The teacher chatted with her and said that you could write a documentary "drifting north" to help draw up the direction of the eighteen chapters. She has written the tenth chapter now.

On the back of 46 discarded medicine boxes is the first draft of chapter 10 16000 of Beipiao.

Yin knows that he will not be the kind of writer who is famous for his books.

She was born in Yi 'an County, Heilongjiang Province, where potatoes and corn are abundant. When I was a child, my teacher often used her composition as a model essay. She likes telling stories to her classmates best. After watching The Journey to the West, she will make up the story of The Journey to the West, the Tang Priest's master and apprentice, who came back from the Buddhist scriptures.

Her youth was as rich as the northeast at that time. After graduating from high school, I entered the construction unit of state-owned enterprises, first moving bricks on the construction site, and later became a tower crane driver because I was afraid of heights. After it rains in summer, the tower crane circuit system is unstable, and the start button will be electrified. But a female driver, sitting in the cockpit of a high tower crane, is very cool.

She has a small bookcase, which contains her compositions from primary school to middle school, her first poem, her travels with her little sister, and the annual year-end summary.

Soon she got married and lived a life of "like the warm sunshine in autumn". The accident happened in 2000. Her husband was diagnosed with liver cancer and died six months later, leaving her with only 5,000 yuan in foreign debt. She was thirty years old that year.

To make matters worse, Yin herself was fired, just like thousands of laid-off women workers in Northeast China.

How to live? Yin first went to work in a private kindergarten in Daqing. A year later, the kindergarten closed down and the benefits were not good. She moved to Jiangsu again.

I worked in a distant relative's house, went to a factory, worked as a clerk for renting a bookstore, drove a car for a private passenger transport company, and followed two Iveco and Jinlong to sell tickets in Wuxi and Nanjing Donghuamen.

It was the lowest three years in her life, and she was helpless. She also experienced three car accidents and a gas poisoning.

When she couldn't find a job in the hardest time, she went to find her little sister who worked in a restaurant. Sister carefully asked the foreman, can sister eat here?

Seeing the contemptuous glance from the foreman, Yin quickly found a reason to leave. She was very sad. "I was originally a tower crane driver. How could I get to the point where I can't even eat?"

About that time, she picked up the pen again. Writing is the most useless thing for her in the rented house converted from a hen house, but she feels that whatever she writes is like comforting herself.

In 2005, she ended her wandering in the south and returned to work in a hot pot restaurant in the northeast. A little sister advised her that if you don't care about yourself, it would be good to go to Beijing to be a nanny. You can control 800 yuan a month, which is not as good as 350 Qian Qiang a month in this hotpot restaurant.

Under the introduction of the Women's Federation, Yin got on the train to Beijing in a hurry and finally settled in Xisanqi Jindu Home Economics Company.

Since then, an employer's family has left its mark on Yin's life.

The first family belongs to the army, and the children of the old man are very kind to her, but the old lady always "sings down" her for some reason. Socks, headscarves, keys, if you can't find them, scold them in front of her, and if you find them, forget them lightly.

In order to save water, she was not allowed to go to the toilet at home, but only went to the public toilet outside. Send a steamed bun for every meal-Grandpa is a veteran of the Anti-Japanese War and has all kinds of rice, noodles and oil benefits, but the old lady said that it is not enough for several people to eat.

Yin didn't dare to speak, and went back to the housekeeping company to tell her familiar teacher during the break. The other party didn't speak, so she went to the canteen and wrapped a big bag of pickles in a big plastic bag for her to take away. The next day, the old lady said to her, "There is no food at home. Take out your pickles."

She gradually realized that this is the life of a nanny. But when I first came to Beijing, I didn't dare to leave without money, and finally I persisted for nine months, which was also the longest one in that family.

Over the years, all kinds of families that Yin has experienced have the idea of changing careers. "But so many students outside can't find jobs. What can I do as an ordinary person at the bottom? "

What an 88-year-old woman did made her most ashamed and resentful. On Yin's rest day, the old lady changed her habit of getting up late on weekdays and went into her room at six in the morning to look for it carefully. Sometimes I will be searched, "The little cotton-padded jacket my son gave me is missing." After coming back, the old lady will ask in detail who she met today and what she talked about.

But Yin didn't leave in the end. Because she found that the old lady only cared about property and nothing else. As long as I can read and write, I can stick to it.

What's more, she even has a small room where she can write freely after closing the door at night.

The old lady is very open-minded about this matter: you love writing, but I don't read it.

While waiting for work in the housekeeping company, Yin wrote on the floor.

In 20 17, Yin's article was selected by an official WeChat account, and she got the first payment in her life, 100 yuan. At that time, her pen name was "Dust"-as big as Beijing, but she was as small as dust, perhaps lighter than dust.

But Beijing can also make people dream. She applied to the Staff University and taught online for half a year. Every week, college teachers give lectures and assign homework. The employer's daughter is very good. I heard that she was taking an amateur network class and installed a router.

In class, Yin heard about "urban and rural problems" and "rural construction" for the first time, read Sophie's "The World" and "The Age of Extinction" for the first time, participated in class discussion for the first time, and hid in the bathroom for the first time to write a graduation thesis-the old lady was distressed by the electricity bill and refused to turn on the light at night.

When I first saw the poster of Beijing Hongyan Social Work Service Center, Yin hesitated for a long time and dared not go in.

"I think there is a free lunch in the world? If you don't go in, you will be cheated and you can't get out. "

Hongyan mainly serves female migrant workers who are mainly domestic workers. The activity center is just a simple basement, open all year round. Auntie housekeeping can join a manual group here, learn Chinese medicine scraping, sing and dance.

Over the years, Yin has never changed the housekeeping company, just to get closer to Hongyan. No matter how far it is, many domestic girls will come back to see them during the weekend break. ?

"In the customer's home, we are almost suppressed. We just need to do our job well, and we don't need you to express it, let alone have ideas. In domestic companies, too, several people get together and chat loudly, and they will also be reprimanded. Everyone here is equal. We can finally say whatever we want without warning. " Yin Xiaotong said. ?

Here, Yin's enthusiasm for writing was encouraged, and she also signed up for a writing class.

From June 5438 to June 2020 10, a curatorial artist combined her own experience and made an exhibition called Footprints Abroad, and gave her the service fee of 300 yuan. At first, she didn't know whether to take it or not, but the artist told her that "everyone has one."

"Very timid", Yin described the character. Her courage seems to have increased in the past two years.

Before the outbreak, she paid an agency fee of 1200 yuan to find a new job. The intermediary teacher told her that this female employer has a bad temper. You can endure and work hard there. You won't lose anything.

After waiting for the door, Yin found that the intermediary teacher really didn't "cheat" her. This post-90s full-time wife always gets angry for no reason. On New Year's Day, take the children downstairs for a walk. Aunties from other families tease children: Little Apple, has your family changed aunts again?

Just as Yin wanted to leave, the epidemic broke out.

Familiar domestic girls are either trapped in their hometown after the Spring Festival and lose their income, or they are in Beijing without a job. Domestic companies, which could have provided accommodation, closed their stores one after another, and they ran around like refugees.

Yin felt that being angry with herself was nothing compared with them.

She works hard, and female employers are getting used to being overweight, which is enough to keep her busy from 6 am to 9 pm or even 10. Finally, when the epidemic eased, the female employer was furious when she heard that she was leaving: you are not allowed to leave unless you find a suitable replacement. If the newcomers don't adapt, they have to come back and continue to work!

Yin quickly contacted the original intermediary teacher and found that she had been blacked out. She still insisted on leaving, and the hostess was tough: My husband has money, you can leave, but you can't pay.

Yin is no stranger to this. In the past, her employer often asked her to give up her vacation to earn overtime pay. In the end, she refused to cash it, so she had to forget it.

"There are various views on domestic workers in society, but the reality I have seen for so many years is that most domestic workers have no bargaining chips." Yin Xiaotong said.

Mei Ruo, the person in charge of Hongyan, and Teacher Lu of Workers' University called her to give advice and encourage her to fight for her rights and interests.

Yin thought all night. The next day, she summoned up the courage to negotiate with her female employer. All she knows is that she can't leave without money. After a long stalemate, the female employer finally reluctantly ended her salary.

This is Yin's first visit to Beijing in many years.

"Nanny is a service industry at the bottom of society and is looked down upon. I am engaged in this profession and see a lot of inequality and unfairness, but I can only compromise in order to survive. Since there is no place to reason, write it yourself. " Yin Xiaotong said.

In her article, she exposed the practices of domestic companies:

Toilets are locked for servants and only used by staff.

You can use it in summer if you like. Washing clothes costs 3 yuan, including underwear. Take a bath for 20 minutes 10 yuan, and wash your hair once in 3 yuan.

The company encourages employers to recharge a lot and promises to change people until they are satisfied. In order to lobby employers to buy insurance, they do not hesitate to vilify the whole group of domestic workers: "What if the nanny steals from your house?"

What makes Yin and his sisters most unhappy is, "domestic servants must hold health certificates and diagnosis certificates before they can take up their posts, but how to ensure the health of customers?"

There are 35 million domestic workers in China, most of whom are women. Mero, the head of Hongyan, said that domestic servants are like invisible people in the city, but they are everywhere but disappear.

Yin once asked a male employer if she could have a room of her own if family conditions allowed.

The other party responded strongly: What do you want with your room? You have to keep an eye on the old man for 24 hours! Some female employers also said, don't rest, I'll give you money. Isn't it for money to come out to work?

"In the traditional concept, a nanny is a servant and a big momma, and there is no personal space and personal needs. If you have an idea, others will think you are abnormal. " Yin Xiaotong said.

In 16, Yin is always troubled by a strong sense of uncertainty. No family, no children, no fixed residence. If you don't do this job, where will you go in the future?

? "So writing is a kind of support for me. In a previous life, people have to leave after all. But if you leave this process in words, there will be no time to live in vain. "

Someone also introduced the object to Yin, which she felt inappropriate. If it doesn't fit, don't force it. "People should not be accessories of others."

Now she just wants to save some money. Maybe you can buy a house in a small place in the future, end the long wandering for more than ten years and write with peace of mind. She changed her pen name to "",and "Chen" stands for hope.

A few months ago, the official WeChat account published Yin's article, announcing that it would stop updating and bid farewell to the women workers: "We believe that even without us, everyone will continue to nourish their courage with creation on their own stage, and live high's dignity will make tiny and accurate voices a force for mutual support."

Yin forwarded this notice in a circle of friends and wrote: The song is not over yet. Be grateful for meeting and cherish the road ahead.