Well it is culturally ignorant tho I won't call it insensitive. Why do they do it? Because they can :-) Is it comfortable? Sure it is, if you've been used to

Well it is culturally ignorant tho I won't call it insensitive. Why do they do it? Because they can :-) Is it comfortable? Sure it is, if you've been used to sitting that way for most of your life. Is it clean? No more cleaner than riding the subway in a major metro or sitting at a park bench or some such. You do notice that they have a rug or some such on which they squat and even if they don't, people tend to keep the areas where they sit relatively clean. You have to understand that irrespective of where people come from there always is a personal sense of hygiene, it may vary from person to person but by and large there is not a glaringly large variance in what is considered clean by most humans. Btw, kids in India and Indian adults out of India have also been known to enjoy sitting on the floor :-)