News from the China Daily that taxi drivers in China’s financial capital of Shanghai are to be issued with “spit sacks” to curb their habit of rolling down their windows and hawking into the road. Spitting cabbies will soon have a sack fixed to the metal grill that surrounds the driver’s seat, so that both (delightfully) they and their passengers can make use of it. The special sacks will be distributed to 45,000 taxis by the Shanghai Patriotic Sanitation Committee to reduce spitting in public places, a habit Chinese authorities say they have long been trying to discourage. Perhaps this is pre-planning for the 2008 China Olympic games, though reports say that it is designed “to make people give up the ugly and unhygienic habit and present a healthy city for the 2010 World Expo.”
As a long-term resident of east Asia, I can assure everyone that, with the exception of Japan, spitting is a major problem here. It’s most disgusting in the PRC, where it is mainly caused by a standard respiratory virus carried by the general population, which passes it along to nearly all visitors. Nauseating globules of saliva are visible everywhere and are a major health hazard. Korea too has a revolting spit factor, with quivering wads of phlegm scattered all over pavements along with prositutes’ calling cards. Here in Taiwan, the major stimulus for an uncomfortable gag reflex is betel nut spit, especially that spewed by cabbies. Taiwan’s streets are characterized by little glass booths containing near-naked young damsels who sell betel nuts, cigarettes and, from all appearances, themselves. Bright red betel nut spit is a real Taiwanese institution. At least cabbies here spit it into some sort of container, and it’s heartening to know that the island’s neighbor across the straits is finally catching on. I look forward to the day when east Asian cabbies know their way around town, too.
No doubt it’s an ugly sport, but the reason why it started was, and stil is, health! From ancient times, chinese medicine has stated that keeping this fluids inside your body affects seriously your health, and it’s true. Al that revolving ugly fluids cause digestive problems wich in some cases could lead to cancer. With the economic living standards that most of these countries show, how do you think they manage to live longer than many western countries?