Having suffered from a fall recently, doctors have had to cut off a significant portion of Moon Teng Jie’s hair – which she had always kept long – for the wound to heal properly. Moon Teng Jie is 89 years old and a retired majie who lives alone in a one-room rental flat in Chinatown. She was part of the wave of female migrants who came to Singapore from the Guangdong province of southern China between the 1930s and 1970s to seek work as domestic servants. Borrowing money to pay for her passage, Moon Teng Jie had arrived in Singapore when she was about 16 after her father passed away. One of the last remaining majies of her generation, Moon Teng has no plans to return to China. She enjoys being at the Kreta Ayer Seniors Activity Centre, where she gets to spend time with friends. This photograph is part of a series by Singaporean photographer Charmaine Poh, which documents the experiences of the majies living out their twilight years in Singapore.
