13th April 2007 - China
Everywhere I go, everywhere I look, men spitting. Women too, dolled up to the nines and hocking up their lungs and spitting the fruits of their efforts all over the street. And the walls. And the doors. And the floors. Yes, the floors.
Whilst walking down the (carpeted) stairs of a quite-alright hotel in Xi'an, I see a guy in his twenties swagger over with his buddy, when he hocks up a good old one, complete with stomach-turning sound effects, and spits it on the carpet! Indoors! On the carpet!
Maybe he was just trying to impress the foreigners with his displays of phlegmy masculinity, but the chambermaid walking by didn't bat an eyelid. This is NORMAL. This is not normal!
Maybe I'm overreacting, but I can't help feeling a wee bit disgusted when I hear of monks spitting in the foyer of one of the nicest hotels in Lhasa. Men everywhere, going about their daily business. Riding bikes, driving buses, building houses, planting crops, all of them with a cigarette hanging from their lips, which they take out just long enough to expel the crap in their throats. The phlegm is on the pavement, on my hotel wall, it's on my bloody shoe.
The anti-spitting campaign MAY not be working.
2 comments:
can't believe that you have no comments
on this spittingly funny look at cultural
differences... had me rolling
i had no idea (about the spitting)
i saw some of your fun (and funny)
flickr photos and wondered what an
Irish person in korea would blog about :-)
now i know
cheers!
David
http://www.flickr.com/photos/davesbit/
yours is just the sort of commentary that I love to read - wish there was more...
enjoyed your flickr site as well.
Mark Vincent
Dallas
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