Sunday, November 30, 2008

Amahs & Apartments & Shoes

Sarj provided these photos of his apartment in the early 1960s.

After reading the post on servants, I remembered that I had a picture of the amah who worked for Joe Kowalowski and me before I got married. I made comment on the blog that I would find the photos and scan them for you. Joe and I shared this apartment until I got married in Nov '62.

When I found the pictures and looked at them, I noticed the calendar on the wall. It's a 1962 calendar from K Shoes on Chung Shan N. Rd. I always thought of this place as K Tailors. They did do tailoring, but as the enlargement of the calendar shows, shoes were their main thing.





*** UPDATE ***
Just received this photo of K Shoes from Roger, over at the Linkou website.

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5 comments:

  1. Anonymous30 November, 2008 13:52

    I wish I could find an Amah like that for all of my household chores.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sarj Bloom30 November, 2008 20:25

    Our amahs name was Sue and she was married and had children. She worked hard for us and we treated her good and with respect.
    We often gave her extra food stuffs to take home to her family, after all we didn't eat a lot at the apartment. The fridge did have a lot of beer in it though.
    When we had buddies over and did a bar-b-que on the balcony we cleaned up our own mess.
    Sue didn't have to cook a lot we usually would buy dumplings from the street vendors or make some sandwiches.
    Most of her work was cleaning, washing and ironing our clothes and making the beds etc.
    When I got married we had another amah that my wife interviewed and hired. I can't remember her name, maybe because she didn't speak English. This amah got paid the same ($25 a month)but worked much harder. She cooked all our meals except when we went out ,usually to the Navy Club.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Anonymous16 December, 2008 09:07

    WOW! amahs were great. I will never forget my first letter home to my relatives explaining that a service member making little money could afford a maid, houseboy, and a guard.
    What a great time in my life....no wonder I had two tours totalling five years.

    Thanks
    Bill

    ReplyDelete
  4. Sarj Bloom17 December, 2008 12:22

    George since the last Kat House closed in Taiwan see http://ustdc.blogspot.com/2008/09/end-of-era.html#links
    maybe one of those gals would come to work for you cheap. Ha Ha

    ReplyDelete
  5. Anonymous17 December, 2008 20:31

    Well Sarj, at this stage in my life I will take whatever I can get...:)

    ReplyDelete

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