The Asian Squat

I'm supposed to be processing Amanda and Ryan's wedding photos right now, but there are so many, and I'm just bagged, so I tell myself - tomorrow, I will get them done.

But before I head off to bed, I came across these two photos that Anita took of me at the wedding that I thought were hilarious. A few years back, we spent some time in mainland China, and I was struck by three really common behaviours of the local mainlanders. 1) Spitting - this happened anytime, anywhere, and sucks to be you if you didn't hear/ see it coming. 2) Jumping Queues - mainland Chinese appear to have no concept of lines or queues. You either elbow your way to the front, or get a black eye trying. Waiting patiently in line is for the elbow-less. And then there's my favourite, #3) Squatting. Oh no, they don't just squat for toilets, they do it for everything. Need a rest? Have a squat. Wanna converse with someone? Take a squat. Eating lunch but there's no tables and chairs in sight? Squat! There's even an instructional video on how to do The Asian Squat (both feet should be flat on the ground) on Youtube. Or you can read more about it here.



Anyways, the point of this story is that Anita gets annoyed when I squat because it looks so mainland-ish. And out of spite, and partially out of satire, I purposely do it when she's around.





For the Photo nerds out there, that's the Nikkor 70-200mm f/2.8 lens I'm wielding there. It's slightly ridiculous looking mounted on the tiny D40x, but I didn't rent a second body, so this was my only option other than switching lenses on the fly on my D300.