Chinese ban spitting for Olympics

canada.com ^ | 04/14/07 | AP

[blam]

"My Chinese (2nd generation) friend just returned from China. With disgust, he said, “you wouldn’t believe how these people spit all the time.”

BTW, he said the country is already 'full' of foreigners preparing for the 2008 Olympics.

[Dutch Boy]

For those fellow FReepers that have been to China...

Has any of you seen the toddlers running around in the split bottom pants? I was in a dumpling shop in a non-tourist section of Shanghai. As we were eating our dumplings for lunch we saw a little boy. He was stand at the entrance of the restaurant. He squatted and took a dump right there, not more than 10 feet from where we were eating. Some woman grabbed a newspaper, picked up the turd. She then dumped water from a bucket on it and swept it out onto the sidewalk. Not a single local person in the restaurant even blinked. One of the guys I was with almost barfed.

I have seen them do in on the street, the parks and in a Chinese style mall not far from Yu Yuan Garden. I should have taken pictures be I was too stunned to get out the camera.

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

“For those fellow FReepers that have been to China...Has any of you seen the toddlers running around in the split bottom pants?”

Yes, that took me by surprise.

Again I repeat myself. Going to China is not a vaction. It is a learning experience.

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

vaction = vacation...sorry.

[Moonman62]

Is it any wonder that flu strains originate there?

[Gatún(CraigIsaMangoTreeLawyer)]

China is dirty, but it is interesting.

[albee]

"Chinese ban spitting for Olympics"

Well, at least they didn't ban public farting.

[GingisK]

Well, dang! I was just now getting good enough to go for a Gold Medal in that sport.

[Zhang Fei]

Has any of you seen the toddlers running around in the split bottom pants? I was in a dumpling shop in a non-tourist section of Shanghai. As we were eating our dumplings for lunch we saw a little boy. He was stand at the entrance of the restaurant. He squatted and took a dump right there, not more than 10 feet from where we were eating. Some woman grabbed a newspaper, picked up the turd. She then dumped water from a bucket on it and swept it out onto the sidewalk. Not a single local person in the restaurant even blinked. One of the guys I was with almost barfed.

I have seen them do in on the street, the parks and in a Chinese style mall not far from Yu Yuan Garden. I should have taken pictures be I was too stunned to get out the camera.

I saw the same thing - in Guangzhou. Just so you know it's not just a Shanghai thing. And then there was the time a Chinese mom opened up her toddler's pants so he could piss in the sink - at a McDonald's.

[oh8eleven]

Off with their tongues!

[Zhang Fei]

This has nothing to do with multiculturalism, but education level and wealth. No Chinese philosopher, monk, writer or artist has ever told people to spit everywhere. Very few educated Chinese spit in the public. If you go to a Chinese university, no one (not the student nor the professor) spits at all.

A tiny minority of Chinese elites have indeed adopted one aspect of Western high culture (i.e. not spitting). Traditional Chinese culture involves frequent spitting. Deng Xiaoping was a regular user of the spittoon. (And don't tell me Deng wasn't educated - he was literate and the commanding general of the decisive battle that defeated Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists). The issue isn't with the habit of spitting in the street - it's with spitting at all. Since the average Chinese is brought up to think of phlegm as harmful, the natural thing is to spit it out at every opportunity.

The problem is that education level throughout China is still very low. For every 10 million educated, there are 100 million uneducated. But hopefully that will greatly improve in the next few decades.

As you yourself wrote earlier, 90% of Chinese are literate. The problem isn't education levels - it's Chinese culture. Westerners have discarded the quack remedies of traditional Western medicine - the Chinese still cling to the quackery of traditional Chinese medical theory, out of racial pride. (In a world where 99% of what Chinese see and touch everyday is a Western invention, the blind acceptance of traditional Chinese quackery is a salve to wounded Chinese pride).Phlegm is bad for you, so you must spit it out. Since no one carries a spittoon around with him, and the cleanliness of the streets is anyhow not his problem, the natural thing to do outdoors is to hawk and spit out that loogie stuck in his throat.

[Zhang Fei]

No Chinese philosopher, monk, writer or artist has ever told people to spit everywhere.

Note also that what is said by self-appointed Chinese social critics and their official hangers-on in later periods doesn't represent Chinese culture. It is what the Chinese people do that represents Chinese culture. Besides, spitting is such an ancient Chinese tradition that to say it's not part of Chinese culture is like saying that leeches were not part of the Western medical tradition.

[Dutch Boy]

I have been to China and I really liked it. I will be going at least 2 more times this year, one for business and one for vacation.

However, there are a lot of smells and sights that I was just not prepared to see.