ABSTRACT
On 4 May 2010, a 28-year-old Indonesian domestic helper comes to Bethune House,
a church shelter for foreign domestic helpers (FDHs) in Hong Kong. She is visibly
distraught, telling the staff that she has run away from her employer with no luggage
and no money. Maryane1 worked for four months for an abusive employer who beat
her every day; she worked 18 hours a day on very little food, and had to sleep inside
the toilet. As the story unfolds, with detailed accounts of how she is beaten and
dragged by the hair across the kitchen floor, she sobs and is barely capable of
speaking. This is a story of unspeakable suffering and humiliation, a trauma
narrative whose tellability is compromised by the unacceptability of the events
(Shuman, 2005, pp. 19-20). Unlike many FDH narratives, Maryane’s story is
documented which makes it even more compelling, and the cruelty of the employer
more unfathomable. She recorded the beatings, and her employer yelling at her, on
her mobile phone, and after the abuse, she used her mobile phone to take pictures of
her swollen face and bruises. The volunteer is in shock as he looks through
dozens of pictures of swollen lips and eyes, bleedings from nose and ears, and bruises
all over her face. For four months, she did not leave the house, and for four months,
she was beaten every day. The excerpt below is a transcript of one of the beatings
which Maryane recorded on her mobile phone. She has laid the table for breakfast,
but has forgotten to put the butter (and apparently other things) on the table (voice
of female employer; original in Cantonese; transcription conventions in the
Appendix).
