Enjoy Spring Festival holiday with housemaids

时间：2007-02-07 00:47:35

（单词翻译:单击）

Chinanews, Shanghai, Feb. 5 – Mr. Shen is a Shanghainese who hires a housemaid at home. As the Spring Festival (lunar New Year) is coming near, he tried to persuade his housemaid to stay with his family instead of going back home by making a set of lucrative1 offers: he promised to raise her salary and said his family could take her for a vacation during the Spring Festival. Despite all these efforts, the housemaid still insisted on going home. Having no other choices, Mr.Shen and his family decided2 to travel to their housemaid’s hometown together with her.

 

“We have no other choice but to go with her because my family can’t do without her,” Mr. Shen said.

 

During the upcoming Spring Festival holiday, about 100,000 housemaids in Shanghai will leave the city for their hometowns. Because of their leaving, many small household service companies in Shanghai will close their business and 60,000 families in Shanghai will also have a difficult time with no one to take care of their household chores during the holiday.

 

In order to persuade these housemaids to stay in Shanghai, many families have made generous3 offers to them. This year, Ms. Wang wants to go to Singapore and Malaysia to spend her holiday. In addition to booking the tickets of her own, she also booked one for her housemaid. She said that her housemaid had done a good job after coming to her home and they have established a very good relationship with each other. In order to reward4 her for her good work, Ms. Wang and her family have decided to take her housemaid to travel abroad with them during the Spring Festival.

 

Like Ms. Wang, many families in Shanghai have decided to spend the Spring Festival together with their housemaids this year.

 

Although these families may use different means5 trying to persuade their housemaids into staying with them, some may not be successful. Having no other choices, the families may have to travel together with their housemaids for the Spring Festival season.

 

Mr. Shen is just one of them. His family originally6 wanted to travel somewhere. However, since their housemaid decided to go back to her hometown in Hunan, Mr. Shen and his family finally decided to change their destination to Hunan, too. They will leave for Hunan on Spring Festival Eve, and spend the holiday living in a hotel next to her housemaid’s house. They will stay in Hunan for a week and return to Shanghai together with their housemaid.

 

At present, many families in Shanghai have decided to spend their Spring Festival holiday with their housemaids, like Mr. Shen does. Most of them are young couples in nuclear families, while some of them are foreigners.

 
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1 lucrative dADxp     
adj.赚钱的，可获利的
参考例句：
  • He decided to turn his hobby into a lucrative sideline.他决定把自己的爱好变成赚钱的副业。
  • It was not a lucrative profession.那是一个没有多少油水的职业。
2 decided lvqzZd     
adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的
参考例句：
  • This gave them a decided advantage over their opponents.这使他们比对手具有明显的优势。
  • There is a decided difference between British and Chinese way of greeting.英国人和中国人打招呼的方式有很明显的区别。
3 generous mgTxq     
adj.慷慨的，大方的，慷慨给予的
参考例句：
  • She was kind and generous.她心地善良，宽容大量。
  • She was generous with her money.她很乐于仗义疏财。
4 reward lXfxz     
n.报酬，酬谢，赏金；vt.奖赏，酬谢，报应
参考例句：
  • He will expect some reward after working so hard.他工作很努力，会得到报偿的。
  • I didn't do it for reward;I did it for love.我做这件事不是为了报酬，而是出于爱好。
5 means 9oXzBX     
n.方法，手段，折中点，物质财富
参考例句：
  • That man used artful means to find out secrets.那人使用狡猾的手段获取机密。
  • We must get it done by some means or other.我们总得想办法把它干完。
6 originally dJCxl     
adv.本来，原来，最初，就起源而论，独创地
参考例句：
  • Originally I didn't want to go.我本意不想去。
  • After much discussion they settled on the plan originally proposed.他们讨论了很久，然后确定了原来提出的那个计划。

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