When I was a kid, I remember very well how my Mom would pick up a metal plate from the kitchen cabinet, decorate its surface with cooked rice, fish and vegetables that she had just prepared, and then throw her butt on the floor. She would linger her back on the dining room wall and bend her knees up so that she could place that metal plate. Mom would enjoy her dish bare hand while watching TV. Sometimes she would feed my brother and me who was sitting on the carpet with our toys. Yes, she used to eat like that. What I found ironic was that she would usually lay out the dining table for my Dad first, with a porcelain plate, a basin and a napkin at the sides, to clean his hands after the meal.
Of course, sometimes my Mum would join my Dad sitting on the dining chair, but that squat position by the dining room wall I think was her favorite.
Before we moved to a house with a sink, my Mom used to sit on a low wooden seat, resembling more like a stepping tool, to wash the dishes, clean the fish or chicken, or hand wash the laundry. As far as I remember, she busily moved around the house a lot with many squats and stand-ups maneuver.
My belated Grandma around that time still squat a lot, too. Her house which was in the village at that time used a traditional kitchen with the stove placed so lowly on the ground. I remember watching her cooking bending on and off her tiny but strong legs that daily wrapped with a sarong. At her quite advanced age, 50s or 60s, she could amazingly stand out again as quickly as she squat down.
What I found interesting was that I did not see my Dad squat much. He was a chairperson, with its literal meaning. I would find him sitting on a chair or a sofa, smoking and watching the evening news, or on the dining table chair having his breakfast, lunch and dinner, or behind the wheel driving us to school. We had no chairs in the kitchen so you would not find him in the kitchen so often. He would be there only if there were something important to tell my Mom or if he just came back from buying an ingredient my Mom had requested.
In short, about ten years ago, ladies in my culture squat a lot. At least that what I witness in my family.
If you see pictures of native southeast Asians in many England or Dutch colonial black-and-white documentations, probably taken between 18-19 century, you would see people crouching or standing, perhaps barefoot and bare chest, too. You won’t find the European armies or authority crouching or barefoot in the photos. Either they are standing up straight or sitting comfortably on a chair. Why? Because Europeans do not crouch. Just how they do not eat with hands, they do not squat. Crouch is never an alternative of resting. To sit is. And if today you don’t squat much, too unless when you are in the gym, then you might not realize that we are actually in the middle of adopting the European sitting culture and left behind our nice and healthy crouching habits once practiced by our grandparents and great great great grandparents.
Look at our kitchen today. All activities there force the users to stand. Turn to the dining room, again; we are to be forced to eat by sitting on a chair. If you wonder how our ancestors eat in the past, they sat on their bottom! Yes, they crossed their legs and sat on their bottom comfortably. Like how I pictured my Mum’s eating habit when I was young. We didn’t have chairs at home. But Europeans built chairs everywhere, even for the toilet.
Nowadays, every luxury life in our place copies the European lifestyle. We think the sitting toilet is more luxurious than the squatting one, so is the standing kitchen than the traditional one. We almost never squat any more. We have abandoned this artistic posture which nowadays is claimed to be a healthy posture to practice.
Isn’t it sad that now we are ashamed of our kids sitting on the floor at the mall?
Isn’t it sad that now our elderly loose their squat ability too soon because they rarely squat when they were young?
And isn’t is it sad that we are not confident anymore to crouch anywhere we like because people will mock and laugh? “Eh udah penuh tuh” translated as “Hey, (your poop) is piling, it’s time to move” As if we are a wild animal who is in the middle of defecating.
But the most pathetic of all, isn’t it a shame that we abandon our culture because we think other people’s culture is superior?
Please leave a comment. Do you think to squat is better than to sit? If yes, what strategies do you propose to keep up this good habit in our society?
