Our Filipino women in Fukuoka

A deep red setting sun met us as we entered Fukuoka last Saturday. An almost full moon had already risen as well at the other side. However, the moon had to wait for the sun to fully set before it would start to shine up in the sky for all to see.

This natural sequence observed in the sky may be an apt description for the Filipino women we recently met in Fukuoka.

There are 19 of them who are now attending the caregivers’ course offered by InterAsia Company, owned by the kind and generous Nakamura couple. They are taking the course for several reasons: As a fallback position in the future, as an alternative to their present job as entertainers, to improve their social status within Japanese society that looks down on entertainers and their families as well.

Like the sun that is up and about the whole day before it sets, entertainers busily spend their day attending to the needs of their Japanese spouses and children, preparing meals, taking care of the homes, among others. On top of all these household chores, these 19 women take time off to learn caregiving from 9:30 in the morning to 4:30 in the afternoon, twice a week for several months. They will graduate with a Househelper Level 2 license this December.

Like the risen moon that waits for the sun to set before it gleams, our Filipino women who are housewives and mothers during the day have to wait for the night to transform themselves into bright and bubbly glamorous entertainers. They first came to Japan as entertainers and started with about US$350 monthly pay as first timers. Their pay increased the more times they returned. Even as they married, they did not stop working as entertainers at night.

Why? Our entertainers have never stopped being part of their Filipino families back home. Their salary from their night job helps to support brothers and sisters through school or provide meals even for family members back home. The work also allows them independence from their spouses. Although they admit that their work is tiring and they have to put on happy, cheerful faces to their customers, they say for now, this is their only choice as entertainer’s work is paid Y2000 per hour compared to Y850 paid to caregivers or other types of parttime jobs.

Like the moon, they only keep up their shimmering façade briefly, from about 6:30 in the evening (when they are fetched to be brought to their omise) till about 3:30 in the morning. Back home, they try to catch some hours of sleep, some have to get up shortly after after a few hours to prepare breakfast for the rest of the family, then they have to prepare to leave to catch the train that will take them to a common train station where many of them are fetched by Mr. Nakamura and Ms. Tanaka, their teacher, who bring them by car to the place where their caregiving lessons are conducted. They are also brought back to the station after class so they can get on the trains that will bring them home to prepare dinner for their family before they prepare for their night work as entertainers!

A few of them are unable to keep up with this hectic pace though.

They arrive late for their caregiving lessons and are unable to keep their eyes open through their morning lectures. They are fully awake for their practicum sessions however. And here one can observe that while their caregiving lessons may be for the Japanese elderly in the future, for now, the time with the other Filipinos and the supportive staff of Mr. Nakamura is providing them with the precious restful, happy, laughter-filled caring moments that they themselves personally so obviously need!

“Who could have foreseen the decline of the entertainment industry?” one Filipino lady pondered aloud. “I thought we would go on forever as entertainers, only to wake up one day to realize that we ourselves have not stayed young forever.”

One sees the anxiety and the worries in their eyes, especially among those who have been divorced from their spouses, those who still have small children to care for, and those with family members back home in the Philippines to support.

Like their night work, however, they put on their happy faces and with hopeful eyes and determined hearts, they look to tomorrow with faith and laughter to carry them through the dusk and dawn of their lives here in Japan.

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