one of the things the book talks about is just how easy to is to spot migrant women. specifically, i'm pretty sure she discussed hong kong or singapore, where hoards of migrant women, usually coming from other southeast asian countries, hang out on their days off.
so hong kong, wanders through the streets, and it happens to be the weekend. suddenly, public spaces are filled with non-chinese looking women, who gather around on park benches or on tarps brought from home, sharing snacks they probably made at home, and enjoying their one and only days off. this was amazing; it was like my worlds were colliding and becoming true all at once. these women, probably au pairs or some clothes factories help, are part of a bigger thing, a global market that is only expanding to include more women leaving their homes in hopes of earning some money.
so then, that got me thinking about the business of mail-order brides...because, again, in hong kong you see a lot of these interesting couples of older white dudes and young (and pretty) asian girls. and in my cynical head, i have to wonder if this is what happened, if this is some chick who found a rich white dude while he was sunbathing on an economy (cheap-ass) trip to an exotic asian country. and then, the even more cynical part of me, starts wondering if they are happy, if they got together because they truly fell in love, or just because she needed to get out of poverty and he needed someone to do his laundry...and well, the other thing, we'll leave out of here. from my experiences working with immigrant women, from working with sex workers, this is the only thing that makes sense in my mind--a business arrangement of sorts, where work (and sexual work) are reimbursed with financial stability and security. and then i wonder if these women are geniuses, or really unlucky, to need to resort to marriage arrangements for economic reasons. at least, so it seems, labor migrants are earning their own dollars (or whatever other currency you can think of)....except for stories i heard from my interviews, of women being raped by their employers, whether in the factory or by the daddy whose kid you're nanny-ing. but of course, women are assaulted and abused everywhere. women make bad relationship decisions, stay with abusive partners, all in the name of stability, or money, or some other lie they frequently tell themselves. the circle of globalization is complete.
