My father, his neck and the 21 housemaids

Finding the right person to lend a hand around the home can be a chore and a half

Xiao Jia finally left my parents after my father decided to move into a rehabilitation center.

We called her Xiao Jia (Little Jia) instead of using her full name. The woman in her late 40s from Gansu province, followed a string of 20 other ayi, or housemaids, I had hired for my parents after my father fell and damaged cervical vertebrae, making it difficult for him to move around unaided for the past four years. When Xiao Jia left she had worked for us for little more than a month.