http://indonesia.pelangi.

org/culture/papering-over-the-cracks-a-cheeky-column-118

January 30, 2008 

Papering over the cracks: A cheeky column

Julia Suryakusuma, Melbourne

A few months ago I wrote a column about Indonesians' obsession with bodily functions (The Jakarta Post, Nov.
8, 2007), but now I want to really plumb the depths of cultural differences and get to the bottom of the matter.
This is one column that definitely should be read while sitting on the toilet (although any Westerners reading
should be prepared to turn the other cheek!).

People talk about cultural differences between East and West in terms of dietary habits: People in the East eat
rice as their staple, while people in the West prefer potatoes and bread. But the really important difference I
now realize is a little further south, below the belly: in the West, dry bum/wet vagina; in the East, wet bum/dry
vagina!

Let me explain. In the West, wet vaginas are considered sexually desirable, but in Indonesia women are brought
up believing that dry vaginas enhance sexual pleasure, for men at least (read the coming February issue of The
Jakarta Post Weekender for more on bizarre local traditions for producing a fraction more friction). But when it
comes to bums, it's wet, wet, wet all the way in Asia!

Indonesians, like many other Asian cultures, use water to clean the anus after what in Indonesia we call buang
air besar ("throwing out big water", i.e. a bowel movement, as opposed to buang air kecil, "throwing out small
water", having a pee). Pee or poo, we cleanse ourselves with water, and often soap as well. This is called cebok
and there is no equivalent term in English, mainly because there is no equivalent activity in the Anglo-Saxon
world. Unfortunately.

The French of course, have the bidet, often the butt of jokes, but since they never quite managed to rule the
world, it's Anglo-Saxon custom that prevails. Forget about Napoleon, who admonished Josephine not to wash
herself as he was coming home in five days time and yearned for "the scent of a woman". He was after all "a
barbarous Corsican" (the epithet he was bullied with when at school in Brienne, in continental France) and not
really French — and he was soundly defeated in the end anyway. And that was at … ah … Waterloo, of course.
The toilet paper so beloved of the victorious British Empire came soon afterwards, patented in 1871 (although it
had been produced in China since 1391) and colonialism spread it across the world.

Today, toilet paper is now associated with economically-developed societies, although I'm not sure what's so
"developed" about dry wiping your dirty backside. A Western friend of mine gained an insight into this when he
accidentally stepped in dog poo while barefoot on the beach. Think about it: Would you consider yourself clean
after wiping your feet with paper? Chances are, you'd only feel clean after you'd washed your sullied
extremities with soap and water. So how is it different if it's not your feet, but your bum?

In the old days, we Indonesians used a dipper (made from plastic or before the days of plastic, coconut shells),
scooping water out of a water receptacle using the right hand, leaving the left to do the cebok-ing. Right hand
for eating only please! Nowadays there are hand-held toilet showers, bidets or water-fountains that squirt the
water where it's needed — providing you position yourself strategically so it doesn't land on the cheeks, or
worst of all, your legs and clothes.

However, I've noticed that five-star hotels usually don't provide "toilet shower" facilities, in any shape or form.
Perhaps they are afraid that — shock, horror — it will make the floors wet! Do they really think that
 http://indonesia.pelangi.org/culture/papering-over-the-cracks-a-cheeky-column-118

Indonesians or French never stay in five-star hotels? The result is that in order to really get clean after using the
toilet, we water babes have to strip to the waist, get into the bathtub and use the handheld shower.

And what if there's no bathtub, just a fixed showerhead? Get a bottle, fill it with water and pray for eyes in the
back of your head! Before the days of toilet showers, that's what people did (and I once saw a sign that helpfully
warned that inserting the bottle can be dangerous!). And I'm happy to report that now even the victors at
Waterloo accept that some people use more than paper: the British Council toilets in Jakarta used to have bottles
in neat, stainless-steel baskets (hopefully they've kept up with times and replaced them with toilet showers
now).

And why are Westerners so afraid of water anyway? Whatever happened to washing away your sins? In Islam
there is the practice of doing ablutions before praying five times a day, and in Christianity there is the saying
that cleanliness is next to godliness. I accept that if you live in the West, it might be …er …a wee bit cold in
winter, but it is certainly not unhealthy. I recently read a Western academic paper on Indonesian hygiene issues
that condescendingly dismissed the Indonesian custom of cebok as "innocuous", because it "likely has a benign
impact on health". Come on! It's a lot more than innocuous — in a tropical climate like Indonesia where
bacteria breed like rabbits in that damp, warm Bermuda Triangle down under, it's an absolute necessity!

So I was flushed with excitement to discover yesterday there's now even a WTO. No, no, not the World Trade
Organization, the World Toilet Organization (www.worldtoilet.org)! Seriously! Dedicated to issues involving
toilets and sanitation it was founded by one Jack Sims in 2001. Its headquarters are in Singapore, it has 44
members and, believe it or not, it has set up a Toilet College to educate people on sanitation, considered by
some to be a dirty word.

I may not have a Doctorate in Bottom Hygiene but if they offer an honors course on cebok, I think I might be
qualified to teach it!

The writer is the author of Sex, Power and Nation. She can be contacted on jsuryakusuma@gmail.com.

The Jakarta Post

Tags: Julia Suryakusuma, the jakarta post 

Filed under Culture by Admin2.0

Permalink • Print • Email • Comment  

Trackback uri 

http://indonesia.pelangi.org/culture/papering-over-the-cracks-a-cheeky-column-118/trackback

Related Entries 

• Cultural Transformation Requires Change of Habits 
• Benazir Bhutto Killed in Pakistan for Politics 
• Women in History Rule With a Fatal Inheritance 
• Securing rice supply 
• Women in Indonesia: Riding Wild Horses Backward? 

Leave a Comment