How good is your English? And, if you employ a domestic helper, how does it compare with hers? These questions are unlikely to unsettle many in Hong Kong, but in Taiwan, with no history of a British colonial presence, English has to be learned the hard way, and one of the problems facing young professional families with a live-in maid is that her English frequently puts theirs to shame.
The issue is highlighted in a book published in the US this week that studies foreign domestic workers in Taiwan. Entitled Global Cinderellas, it looks at the wide range of Filipino, Thai, Vietnamese and, increasingly, Indonesian labourers working in Taiwanese homes. It comes up with some interesting insights.
Whether women join forces to challenge male supremacy, as feminists have long urged, is one. Not in this context, apparently. Domestic helpers, instead, allow graduate wives to pursue careers that were long the preserve of men, argues the book's Taiwanese author, Pei-Chia Lan.
What the domestic helpers need to recover on their days off, she adds, is a sense of self-respect. Laughing among themselves at their employers' shortcomings when giving instructions in English is one means to that end.
On Sundays, Indonesians congregate at Taipei Station, and Filipinos around the nearby St Christopher's Catholic Church. Both groups display strong feelings about working on the island.
Emma, from Jakarta, told me she had worked in Singapore, but wages were higher here. By contrast, Joseph, a factory worker from Manila, said many of his compatriots were angry about the sums withheld by agents, both here and in the Philippines. For the first 15 months of their three-year contracts, he said, many receive as little as a quarter of their NT$15,840 ($3,825) monthly salaries.