Six hours sleep after arriving in HK from Sydney to my new home; I was getting ready to go to the Immigration Centre to register for my ID card. Everyone who is going to be here longer than 6 months needs one.

Exhausted, I caught my first ferry and then MTR (mass transit rail) with Mr Shallot and who knows how many millions of others who were going to work. After being given some impressively comprehensive directions, I set out for the Immigration Centre, seemingly the exact opposite direction to which everyone else was going.

I arrived to then be told to come back at 1.30pm for my first interview. I had no idea that an interview process was involved and thought that I’d just have to hand in my prepared form.

The delay in being able to see someone gave me plenty of time to have a look around Causeway Bay, get lost and check out some shops. Great shopping area and I can see why it’s so popular.

Finally I was back and at my first interview. The woman that I met with noticed that I hadn’t completed the occupation section. As I’m here on a dependent’s visa and was initially told that meant that I couldn’t work straight away, I had left the occupation section blank. I was then asked what I was doing at the moment. I was too exhausted for a smart answer though a few not so smart ones did cross my mind. I ended up saying something to the effect of “I’m here on a dependent’s visa”. Her response was “Housewife then?” My look of total bewilderment she mistook for depression to which it was soon to become when she sympathetically said “there is nothing wrong with being a housewife. HK was built on housewives and without them, we wouldn’t have gotten as far as we have.”

I didn’t know what to say. I had just moved to a new country, I had no furniture (just a couple of mattresses on the floor for a bed at that point) and I was being called a housewife. I didn’t own any cleaning products, broom or even a mop. How could I possibly be a housewife? I’m a career woman who just happens to be in between jobs. Others would call this ‘unemployment’ which is also ok with me. I just hadn’t thought of myself as a housewife before. I figured that might be something that I do when I’m older not right now and when I’m in a new country!

There is a whole raft or responsibilities for a housewife that somehow calling myself unemployed didn’t seem to have. I now needed to keep the place clean and make sure that dinner was ready as well as looking for work. It was much easier when I thought I just needed to look for work and could do the cooking, cleaning etc on the side. The primary focus of the jobs / labels suggested different things to me and now I felt that the primary focus had shifted. I would need to get a job quickly!

Two additional interviews later, I have my temporary ID card and have to go back in two weeks for the permanent one.

It is now a month later, I have my permanent ID card (why are the photos on all these kind of cards so bad?) and I feel like I’m settling in. I have registered with some employment agencies and met a company too. We have a bed, couch, chair, TV and TV stand, rug and some cleaning products.

I still don’t have a mop.