May Day

First I really heard of May Day, (other than being a day to leave flowers on a person's doorway, ring the door and run away,) was when a Namibian colleague in Turkey complained that we had to work on the day. Here I don't have to. It's a public holiday and we decided to wander the town taking pictures. I had no idea how different it would look from an ordinary day.

Helpers were sitting all along the walkways as they do every Sunday. It looked like any holiday until we got right into the middle of the town. Thousands of domestic workers were sitting on the street by the Bulgari building, the Prada building, under the Armani walkway, everywhere. Down the street, there was a revival meeting. Hundreds were wearing "Jesus is Lord Church, Third Anniversary Hong Kong T-shirts." On blocked off side streets, other groups of people played drums and danced. Every weekend I've seen the groups of women on stools moving among the picnics and giving manicures. Every weekend there are groups of women practicing dance routines. Every weekend others are stringing together beads to made the most hideous plastic bead flower arrangements. But on May Day it was all this, and more.

Over by the trams, dozens of black T-shirted girls were waiting to get on. Their shirts listed the Indonesian domestic workers demands: 1. Stop underpayment. 2. Reduce agency fees. 3. Increase the two week limit to find new jobs. (An domestic worker who quits her job or is fired has only 2 weeks to find a job or leave Hong Kong. It's a rule that's used by many employers to keep their workers from complaining, quitting or refusing any task.) As we rode the tram towards Causeway Bay, I saw hundreds more of these T-shirts. None of these pictures shows how huge the numbers of workers were everywhere on the streets. It looked like another whole population of Hong Kong had been deposited outside, which is I guess what actually happened. All these workers who are usually indoors cleaning, shopping or minding children were outside with nothing they had to do.

Late in the evening we returned. The revival meeting had quieted down, but the picnics were still going on. Lines of empty San Miguel cans sat along railings and helpers picked through the garbage for aluminum cans and saleable items before going home to their employers' houses.
See better pictures than these at: hkstreetsntowers.blogspot.com