5/11    "Doctors say spitting, sometimes referred to as China's national
        pastime, can propel droplets to others and inadvertently spread SARS."
        http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=578&u=/nm/20030512/ts_nm/sars_dc_275
        Can someone explain how/why spitting is a pastime?
        \_ just more white racism.
        \_ isn't the implication obvious? stereotypically speaking,
           chinese guys (well, the ones from asia) spit a lot.
           -chinese guy that doesn't spit a lot
           \_ wow, this is one i hadn't heard before or noticed. is this a
              China or Taiwan or all chinese in general thing?
              -another chinese guy who rarely spits
              \_ Can only vouch for Shanghai and Fujian province, but yes,
                 all sorts of people were hawking all over the place.
                 Watched this very beautiful young lady walk down the
                 street, pause, and hawk a loud one before she continued
                 sashaying.  Talk about culture shock.
                 \_ I'll vouch for jiangsu province--same thing.  snot shots
                    also.
                 \_ "sashaying".  What a beautiful word.  Thanks for using it.
                    \_ you're welcome!
           \_ this is Chinese in general thing.  Taiwan had a movement
              to get rid of it and had pretty good degree of success.
              Beijing is doing the same after they won the Olympic bid.
              Beijing is deadily serious about it now :p
              \_ In Hong Kong twenty or so years ago they started fining people
                 HK$2000 (~US$400, with the exchange rate back then) for
                 spitting onto the ground.
        \_ Yankee go home.
        \_ I disagree.  Among those under 40, I actually find Americans spit
           more.  Maybe they are just learning from their baseball players.
           \_ I've never seen anyone spit unless they had something vile like
              a bug fly into their mouth.  Dunno which barns you're hanging
              out in.  Keep your racism and ageism to yourself, thanks.
              \_ You need to pop your head out of the pig's arse once in a
                 while.
                 \_ You mean I need to hang out in barns and sleep in the
                    swill with the likes of you?  It's a bad thing that I
                    don't hang out with spitting gutter trash like you?
                    \_ Next time when our national pasttime is on, stop
                       hanging out with the pig and yersis in the barn, go
                       home, turn on the TeeVee and watch the spit fly.
        \_ I think smoking is the real national pasttime there.
        \_ I agree with the article and I'm chinese.  The general perception
           amongst the non-mainland chinese is that the mainlanders are
           backward rural people with poor personal hygiene.  I thought it
           was a stereotype until I came into contact with them.  Damn.  Not
           only do the men smoke a lot, they smoke in front of their children
           and yes, they do spit a lot also.  Also they don't wash their hands
           after going to the bathroom.  That's one reason why I almost never
           go to chinese restaurants.  And reason why I never want to go to
           china either.   The bathrooms are china are scary.  No toilet
           paper and often no doors!  that's right, you crap out in the open.
           \_ Plus the toilets are squatters, you're lucky if you have a three
              foot high partition, and you have to pay for the experience.
           \_ RACIST!
              \_ on the bus from one city to another, we stopped for a roadside
                 break. there were public toilets in the back of one bldg. no
                 doors on the 2 entrances to the bathrooms, and you could see
                 a row of squatting toilets. ppl tried to use the less obvious
                 ones cause when you gotta go, you gotta go. some ppl just
                 stuck their hands in the common hand washing bucket instead
                 using the supplied handled cup to get a dunk of water to pour
                 over your hands. Needless to say, I just held my bladder until
                 we got to our destination. It was gross, and unsanitary. It's
                 not RACIST, just 3rd world conditions. also, people on the bus
                 threw their trash in the middle aisle of the bus. yeech!
                 \_ What is racist isn't their conditions but your holier than
                    thou attitude about it.  It was gross?  They 'live' like
                    that every single day!  'yeech!'  Oh yeah?  Well what did
                    *you* do to help improve their situation?  Wore a condom
                    when you had sex with the 12 year old enslaved prostitute?
                    \_ I'm not the original "racist" poster, and this is just
                       commentary of my trip in China. There isn't anything I
                       could do personally to help them like building new
                       toilets at every bus stop and so forth. However, I'm
                       sure that my spending of tourist dollars in their
                       economy must have helped someone. Sorry, but that's the
                       best I can do. Perhaps, both you and the original poster
                       can both work on your attitudes. that said, I really
                       enjoyed my trip to China and would go back in a heartbeat,
                       if I had the $$$ and there was no SARS. China is still
                       3rd world, but is quickly catching up. There is still
                       something special about old China and it was great to
                       experience it before they modernize and it's all lost.
                       In my experience, a lot of city folks look down on the
                       ppl from the countryside which since it's in China,
                       cannot be called racism (classism?). But they are the
                       pillars of the new economy, and the countryside is very
                       beautiful, and these ppl tend to be quite nice in general.
                       A lot of ppl working the restaurants are from the
                       countryside and no one ever seems to say "thank you"
                       to them, I did, though. and those were some of the most
                       genuinely beautiful smiles I saw while I was there. Oh,
                       and I didn't have sex with 12 year olds.
                       \_ How many of you people disgusted with spitting
                          get or give blowjobs?