A "mulher-aranha" de Macau

'Spider Woman' sparks debate about treatment of domestic helpers

Alex Lo
South China Morning Post
September 5, 2009

She has been dubbed "Spider Woman of Macau" and has provoked rather fierce debates in that city's blogosphere and newspapers. Some posts blasted her callous employers; others say they want to hire her, given her devotion to the job. It's not clear whether the latter group was being compassionately ironic or just mean.

The picture was taken recently and has been widely circulated on the internet. The woman was seen cleaning windows while standing on a ledge on the outer wall of a residential building. Most people assumed she was a foreign domestic helper, though it's possible she was a Macau local, say a housewife who was particularly devoted to the task at hand. Her flat was at least 10 storeys high.

She is believed to have made it back inside safely. But whatever her identity, the picture has sparked a lively discussion on the way Macau people treat their domestic helpers. "Would you send your own daughter out to clean windows like that?" one blogger asked. "If not, why do you send someone's daughter out to clean your windows?"

Good point. Maids in Hong Kong have been spotted on occasion doing similarly hazardous stunts. Come to think of it, we need a debate about how we treat our own helpers.