Squatting Nation
By gé • Feb 20th, 2007 • Category: in-transition, my bling bling life • 11 Responses
by resident writer JazzyJas
SQUATTING NATION = n. people who retains a crouching position of rest while waiting. A temporary position that longer retention can mean a numbness of limbs and retarded move when required.
A long time ago, I read a Chinese author wrote that Chinese is a nation of people squatting. Who that was and why he wrote that, I have no idea but it has been a matter of reflection.
The Chinese immigrants in my country had come as “coolies”, an English phonetic of the name “bitter labour” in mandarin. They worked at the port as hard labour to bring in heavy loads of rice, food, and natural resources from transporting ships to ground. In those times, they could not afford a sitting place to eat so they had empty cartons as tables and squat around to have a quick meal before the next load arrives. Sitting would mean being in puddles of oil and dirt at the port, squatting was a position of short-term rest, ready to go when needed.
Today, it is not very common to see grown-ups squatting in public places. I actually had friends who could never arrive at that position. Apparently, it requires a great amount of balance and positioning of weight. For me, that’s the position of defiant rest, a position I adopt when I had ran out of ideas and needed a change in perspective or a different space to think. It’s a humbling position, to minimize your own presence and identity and view others that bypass your line of sight with an upward angle. Yes, from the angle of a child at a height of less than 1 meter. Suddenly, it’s a very foreign view, a long forgotten disposition.
It is not a long-term position, any change in circumstances requires an immediate extension of limbs to rise to the occasion and move on. My inheritance of this squatting ability is perhaps the genetic alteration of the nomadic strain within the Chinese roots. The Chinese is a nation that gave birth to the phrase ‘first set up your family before your career can blossom’. The squatting nation had left behind their family and heritage to explore new terrains for survival. In that genetic hybrid, I found myself in foreign ground and had settled with just squatting. My luggage bag in plain sight; packed, ready to go where work calls. It has since become a very comfortable position, any more comfortable will be unsettling. Home is the invisible path carved out from the constant stream of moving, not moving can mean a collapse of space that suffocates. Squatting nation has found the oxymoron of feeling at home.
Perhaps home can be grown into as a foreign child grows to belong. But the young legs that are apt to bend and extend are also restless, full of energy to pounce. Some day, these old legs will give way to another crouching being within - the heart’s desires to stay and settle. But the Chinese can also be the warmest blood being that can keep desires hidden deep within. While it’s still crouching, the squatter will move.
JazzyJas
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I love the phrase ‘first set up your family before your career can blossom’. Western nation usually take the other way around.
Thanks Jazz for this post, it may explain why I’m able to take that squatting position without balance problem since I mix some Asian genes in my DNA. I may have a pink skin like Italians which is also part of my DNA, but I squat like Chinese and happen to enjoy that childish point of view.
I put my colleagues on a little squatting test. I’m the only one being able to remain in that position without falling behind. Not everyone can touch their heels with their bottom…
Big belly = no squatting !
Are you suggesting all you colleagues have big bellies?!
Hey I have a big belly and I’m able to squat :-)
Well maybe not with the pair of jeans I’m wearing today, I’m barely able to breath, therefore squatting…
I’ll blame it all the lacquered ducks !
Viva Chinese New Year !!
Coming back to the original subject, I feel like I’ve been squatting all my life, and that’ll I’ll never leave this position.
Always on the move and childish perspective :-)
Nooo!
Your belly’s not big!!
(I felt like this statement was required somehow…)
I have nothing to say on the actual subjet, except that there’s a reason why I don’t want to have a CDI, and stay the way I am today, beeing able to leave everything behind whenever you want just helps putting some perspective on things, and it reminds me that if I am where I am today, it’s because I want it that way, and not because I have to.
to Lilo:
Stay that way! Or change whatever you want to! I feel the same about my apart… no too many possessions to tie me down.
to everyone:
So anyone else suceeded in squatting? I had a colleague who also tried it in London! Maybe we can start a squatting exercise lol
or a squatting trend lol
But Dylan Thomas has this to say:
The force that through the green fuse drives the flower
Drives my green age; that blasts the roots of trees
Is my destroyer.
And I am dumb to tell the crooked rose
My youth is bent by the same wintry fever
Peter Pan we may not all be!
BTW, I love the picture used for this article… inspirational for the next!
thanks Ge!
So true, what you say about squatting… and it’s probably genetic, as people do use this position everywhere in asia, whereas i can’t do it despite 6 months of intense practice…
The key is to keep balance!
In order to do that, you have to actually sit on your ankles.
I heard it was also a very good position to give birth, too bad most caucasian women can’t hold it…
I am so happy! I love all the world! Life is beautiful!