Amah Is Chinese Equivalent

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31091, 21 June 1966, Page 2

Amah Is Chinese Equivalent

(By

LIBBY HUGHES)

She is clad in white mandarin-collared jacket and wide, black trousers. She is an amah, who works for Chinese and Western families in the Orient.

An amah is a special member of the family. Usually she is a Chinese woman whose own children are fully grown. Or else she Is a woman without children of her own. In either case, she loves children and seeks employment in a family as a nursemaid. An amah-reared child gets used to strangers very quickly and experiences little shyness. With two women attending to his needs, he becomes accustomed to many faces. He probably trill speak a little Cantonese or Mandarin as his vocabulary builds. When the amah takes the child for a walk, she gathers with two or three other amahs for a chat.

European children hold a certain fascination for the Chinese. A blond, blue-eyed toddler causes a ripple of comment, and his sandy hair may be tousled by interested passers-by. If a European child has dark hair and brown eyes, this also creates favourable murmurs because he might be credited with looking Chinese. The amah’s outside interests centre around relatives and friends. She may band together with other amahs to invest her earnings in a business venture. For example.

she might buy an apartment to rent to a Chinese family, keeping a small room in it for herself. There she can go on her day off and at the time of her retirement. There is a heart-rending element to the amah-child relationship. Many Western families stay for a tour of two or three years in the Orient. The amah develops a very close and affectionate relationship with the child. And departures are tearful when the amah must say goodbye to a child that she has cared for as her own.

(From the “Christian Science Monitor.”)