Feature: House-keepers bolting after Tet leaves Vietnamese families in tizz

Laboriously cleaning the stairs in her four-story building in Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City, Pham Yen Trang, whose face is now as red as a beetroot, groans, "Oshin, where on earth are you? Come back immediately!"

After around two hours of cleaning the stairs, floors, doors and windows of the building in District 3, the woman in her mid-30s, perspiring and breathless, says to her husband, "Right after Tet (traditional Lunar New Year holiday), I asked for some days off work without pay to take care of our kids and do the housework. I can't stand it anymore. Please call a job center and tell them to introduce a new Oshin!"

Vietnamese people often call their housekeepers Oshin, the name of a poor little servant girl from a well-know Japanese TV series frequently shown in Vietnam.

Vietnamese housekeepers are often rural women, both young and old, who want to escape from the hard work in rice fields or salt-making fields in the countryside.

When a holiday, especially Tet comes, these women usually return to their villages. The biggest worry of many families in cities then is how to get the housework done without their help.

"My nanny hasn't come back. She wants to work as a tailor in her village, while waiting for a relative's wedding later this month," said a 30-year-old bank clerk Nguyen Thu Ha from Hanoi.

"I don't know how I'm going to manage the housework and look after my son now. He's only six months old and too young to go to kindergarten, and my parents live very far away from us," she complained.

On the first few working days after Tet, offices are a buzz with career women bemoaning the fact that their housekeepers have yet to return from the countryside.

Many women from the countryside often use this period to appraise any other available work and it is not uncommon for them never to return to their previous employer following Tet.

Some opt for better paying or more easy-going families, while others take up a better paying, higher status or more challenging line of work altogether.

"I have worked as a housekeeper for years for a middle-aged couple in Ho Chi Minh City's District 1 with a monthly salary of six Vietnamese dong (some 270 U.S. dollars), plus bonuses, free meals and clothes, much higher than what I would get from salt-making in my hometown," Nguyen Thi Men, a 65-year-old woman born in the central province of Nghe An, told Xinhua.

"But I don't want to live too far away from my children and grandchildren for too long. Besides, I am old and weak now, I want to work as a nanny for a more laid back family," the old woman with a weather-beaten face explained as to why she has not returned to the couple's house after Tet.

Despite paying home help good wages, some "Oshin" feel the job carries certain stigmas.

"I can speak English a little bit. I used to work for a foreign family in Phu My Hung (an upscale urban area in Ho Chi Minh City's District 7).

They paid me nearly 10 million Vietnamese dong (445 U.S. dollars) a month. But I don't like the idea of being labeled as a servant, so I recently quit," said Le Thanh Truc from northern Thai Binh province.

The 19-year-old girl is currently working as a shop assistant in an upscale perfume shop in District 1.

Because many Oshin switch jobs or work for other families after Tet, causing a shortage of professional housekeepers, domestic help brokers are doing good business.

The Hoang Long brokerage center in Ho Chi Minh City said they receive around 50 calls a day, asking for recommendations for professional housekeepers because the callers' Oshin have given up work after Tet.

"Our customers are mainly young couples with small children or sick parents. For them, professional Oshin can become the most important person in their families," a domestic help broker told Xinhua.

Many young families in Vietnam's big cities now depend on housekeepers, mainly because women, who are busy with work, have little time for housework and taking care of children or elderly and sick parents, said the broker.

Affluent people prefer spending the little free time they have going to cafes, shopping and meeting friends, rather than cooking or cleaning at home after a full day's work.

Housekeepers, cleaners and nannies have become increasingly common jobs.

Vietnam's Labor Code was amended in 2012 with new regulations which require employers to sign labor contracts, not verbal agreements, with their domestic help, and pay social insurance and healthcare insurance for them.

Monthly wages for Oshin currentlyy stand at around 4 million to 5 million Vietnamese dong in Vietnam's northern region, and 5 to 6 million in the southern region, depending on the specific circumstances of the family.

Some women from the Philippines, who currently work as housekeepers in upscale apartment blocks, earn more, nearly 10 million Vietnamese dong.

A senior official of the Ho Chi Minh City Vocational College said Vietnam should organize more professional training courses and grant certificates for potential housekeepers and nannies like the Philippines and Malaysia has done.

While many families in urban areas are in need of home help, some complain about their employee's behavior.

"My little daughter is a very fussy eater, so I was very happy to see that my Oshin was able to spoon-feed her until the bowl was clean. But one day, I discovered that my Oshin was only letting my daughter eat a third of the food. The rest she was scoffing down herself," complained Nguyen Diem Hang, a prosecutor in Ho Chi Minh City.

Some wives even accuse their Oshin of cheating on the shopping money, stealing personal belongings, or having love affairs with their husbands or sons. Enditem