No separation between home and work

One aspect of life in Asia that I had not expected has been the far closer connection between home and work. In the US many people seem to talk about, and value, having a personal life that is separate enough from their work that they can escape work at end of the day. But in Asia we found little such separation, particularly in the hospitality and restaurant industries.

It’s unclear to me if this is forced by financial reasons or simply a cultural preference, but it is very common for us to find families living in a restaurant’s back rooms as we make our way to the bathroom; or the hotel owner & family sleeping in the hotel lobby at night.  When shops close, they are often simply converted into homes – display areas become couches and seats for customers become beds.

Even in the larger hostels and hotels, it was common to have the night employees sleep in the lobby, often in a tent pitched on the floor. As Jami mentioned in the previous post, we arrived in the Bagan region very early in the morning, with not a single hotel or guesthouse open. Instead of night shifts or a night guard, the hotels had employees sleeping in the lobby, who would wake up and assist guests with checking in. A terrible way to enter a hotel, waking someone up.