c. 2000 Religion News Service

(Tom Ehrich is a writer and computer consultant, managing large-scale database implementations. An Episcopal priest, he lives in Durham, N.C.)

HONG KONG _ Noise sweeps up office-tower canyons beside the waterfront. It reminds me of the break between high school classes, when doors burst open and a thousand conversations erupt.

Every bus, tram and ferryboat deposits more talkers. They stream into glossy downtown shopping arcades _ not to shop, for Armani and Gucci are closed on a Sunday morning, and these women couldn’t afford the merchandise anyway.

They come here to meet friends and countrywomen beside fountains, before finding a patch of sidewalk outside for a picnic. They venture down side alleys, where stalls sell cut-rate underwear and blouses.

Leaflet distributors are on the prowl. They ignore Westerners and the few Chinese women who venture downtown on a Sunday morning. They look for the slightly darker skin and fuller facial features of these Filipino women. I wonder what scam they are promoting.

Mostly the women just gather, unpack their picnics and mats on sidewalks or closed-off streets, and prepare for a day of chatting _ free for this one day of the household duties they perform for Hong Kong’s Chinese elite.

Chains and “No Loitering” signs keep them away from certain parks and government buildings.

These are the maids. Some 150,000 of them tend the children, and do the cooking and cleaning for the wealthy and for middle-class families who need outside help to manage two incomes.

They come from the Philippines, where jobs are scarce. A typical two-year contract pays $500 a month, far more than they could earn at home. They send their paychecks back to support their children.

Sunday is their day off, and they get as far away from their employers as possible.

In my travels, I have learned that observing something doesn’t necessarily mean understanding it. I gather from Hong Kong associates that the Filipino maids are something of an embarrassment to young professionals. But who knows how they will feel when they can afford to hire one? Professional life in Hong Kong is a balancing act on the taut wire of astronomical real estate prices, such as $600,000 for a 700-square-foot apartment.

More to the point, who knows how the Filipino women feel? In a region where jobs are few and only isolated places like Singapore and Hong Kong seem broadly prosperous, these domestic postings apparently are plums.

Sexual abuse by employers isn’t uncommon, an associate tells me, and one employer recently stirred a newspaper fuss when she canned a maid who had developed cancer. But the jobs are prized.

So I just walk and listen. Faces are animated. No one pays any attention to a Pentecostal group singing near the Star Ferry. Few seem gulled by the instant friendliness of the leaflet pushers. They are just happy to be with friends from home.

Weaving my way through the crowd, I walk beside the Mandarin Oriental, poshest of Hong Kong’s posh hotels. Inside the ground-level cafe, wealthy travelers enjoy full English breakfasts, including cold, dry toast served in silver caddies.

One layer of glass separates these sumptuous diners from the noise outside. I am reminded of Peter Arno cartoons of club types in Manhattan.

It is an ancient dream to be on the right side of such glass _ to have enough money to be served, and not to serve; to hold positions of privilege; to have one’s needs met by others; to be one-up, not one-down; to be of the race or social stratum that is welcome inside the rope.

Jesus didn’t lead a revolution against such trade. He just went beyond it. He understood the failing of human nature that makes one person want to control another, and to live grandly at another’s expense. He warned his followers not to be like the privileged, who sold their souls for places of honor.

He warned them that eternity is a long time. It might seem a token of success now to be eating cold toast from a silver caddy while inches away mothers stand in line at pay phones to call their children on another island.

But that is now, and our now pales beside God’s forever.

DEA END EHRICH