Albert Einstein — "The Chinese don't sit on benches while eating but squat like Europeans do when t…"
The Chinese don't sit on benches while eating but squat like Europeans do when they relieve themselves out in the leafy woods.
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Understanding this quote
What it means
Einstein observes that Chinese people squat while eating rather than sitting on benches, then frames this by comparing the posture to how Europeans crouch when relieving themselves outdoors. The quote documents a cultural difference in dining customs through a deliberately degrading comparison, reflecting ethnocentric Western bias. It is not philosophical insight but a personal, prejudiced travel observation that uses bodily function as a lens to otherize Chinese people.
Relevance to Albert Einstein
This comes from Einstein's private 1922–1923 travel diaries, published in 2018, which revealed a troubling gap between his public persona and private thoughts. Einstein publicly condemned American racism and championed civil rights, yet his diaries show he viewed Asian populations with condescension and prejudice during his voyage through China, Ceylon, and Japan. The diaries complicated his legacy significantly and forced reassessment of his humanitarianism.
The era
In the early 1920s, Western orientalism and scientific racism were mainstream. European and American travelers routinely documented non-Western customs through a superiority lens, treating cultural difference as evidence of civilizational hierarchy. Colonial empires were still intact, and anthropological writing of the era normalized exactly this kind of ethnocentric comparison. Einstein's observation, however jarring today, was unremarkable in tone for a Western intellectual of his time and class.
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