A Pot of Crabs

There are a lot of Indonesian maids in Hong Kong.

They are cheaper than Filipinos and amazingly speak Cantonese thus, many people are hiring them rather than the more traditional Filipino maids. You can tell the difference rather easily. The Indonesian maids are Muslims and wear scarves over their head and part of their face and the Filipino maids, being primarily Catholic don't.

I am not big on domestic servants anyway but but given the choice I'd take the Filipino every time. I could deal with food here and talk about the Chinese love of pork and the Halal restrictions against it. However, I'm thinking more subtly and perhaps even more bigoted. One of the main jobs of these maids is to care for children. I wouldn't want my kids raised by a Muslim. I find it to be a completely intolerant and narrow-minded religion. I can not imagine a worse influence on children than Islam. It is a bigoted, racist and intolerant religion. It is spread and maintained almost solely by fear, force and intimidation and free societies would do well to shun it. I find the concept of being intolerant of what I consider to be intolerance to be a fascinating one.

That said; I cannot help but have sympathy for these young women. They come from a repressive, oppressive and backwards culture and I am happy for any of them that manage to escape it. I wish more would. They all seem so sad. I pray for each of the maids I see on the street that they would discard the veil of self-righteousness that they cling to and find true freedom and true love and true submission in Christ.

I causally know a guy who managed to date one of these Indonesian maids for a short period of time. He said that a lot of these maids would like to abandon Islam but are afraid that their family back in Indonesia will be punished or that they will be ostracized or even hunted down and killed by their families. If they begin to fall away from Islamic ideas then one of the other maids will surely gossip about them and the word will reach their village. They cannot escape even if they want to, unless they turn their back on their families and friends forever. I wonder what my reaction would be if I were in such a situation?

He described their culture here in Hong Kong as a pot of crabs. I'm not a big shell fish eater so I don't know but evidently if you go crabbing you place the crabs you've caught in a bucket or pot. As you catch more the crabs pile up on top of each other and the top crabs are closer to the rim of the pot. Eventually the crabs on top try to escape because they can reach the rim of the pot. However, before they climb out the other crabs catch their legs and pull them back in. Thus, none of the crabs escape their fate because those to far down from the rim won't let those higher up climb out.

How sad.

What a picture of Islam.

Until Next Time
Fai Mao
The Blogger without a domestic Servant