Maid Day, Maid Day!

Can I tell you....I've been travelling for business for the past 3 weeks now and it seems like forever. I was in Bologna for a week then went straight to Hong Kong, checked out Beijing for the weekend, back to Hong Kong for a couple of days then finally back to New York end of this week. I have tons of amazing photographs which I'll be posting when I get back. I don't have the usual accoutrements so this post will be a bit lackluster in the visual department, meaning no handwritten scribbles.
This past Sunday I took some photos of what happens to this city every Sunday. It might as well be called Maid Day! Every Sunday, public areas in HK are covered in droves by domestic helpers from all over Southeast Asia, a majority of them Filipinas. They come together in clusters and designate their areas with carton boxes or sometimes by just sitting around in a circle. They gossip, serve food, play cards...have a picnic. The sight is a bit depressing but when you come closer you hear their laughter as they speak their native languages. I even heard Ilonggo, my mother tongue, spoken at several groups. It was fun eavesdropping a bit. I was tempted to ask for some of the food they were dishing out. They send most of the money they make back to their families in the provinces every month and this is essentially a big chunk of the Philippines' revenue. Our biggest export after all is our LABOR. Hong Kong would totally self destruct without these domestic laborers. They're holding it together for all the tai-tais and the gweilos.