Spitting: If Beijing Can Clean Up Its Act, So Can We

It was unmistakable.
The sound of a man hawking up the contents of his throat and aiming that glistening glob of phlegm to the pavement where it landed with a soft, squelchy plop.
My toes twitched in my leather stilettos. Safe from the foamy mucous that landed so close by my feet. Good choice of shoes today I told myself, as I cringed at the thought of manicured bare toes in flip-flops just mere millimeters away from these gobbets of frothy spit.
That particular spit happened in New York. But it could just as well have been Paris, Bangkok or the quaint village of Bedfont, just outside Heathrow Airport. Apparently, spitting is on the rise around the world. And with the Olympics in full swing in Beijing, I am wondering how foreign visitors will be coping with the spitting that is simply a fact of life in every city and village in China. I recently read online that it is "perfectly commonplace there to clear one's throat lustily and let fly with the sputum. Voiding the rheum, or what some call "hawking loogies," is as normal to the Chinese as someone blowing their nose in America."
My very first memory of spitting was in a Chinese restaurant in that small village of Bedfont. Newly opened, airline staff flocked there for lunch. And that included me until one particular occasion when, over the hum of quiet conversation, everyone heard that distinctive sound. Someone in the kitchen of the restaurant, in almost theatrical style, had begun to hawk up the contents of his throat. I looked at my lunch, I looked at the expression of horror on my partner's face and then I looked around the room. Oh yes, it had made quite an impact to the people in the restaurant, especially the women. Forks and spoons were laid down quietly as hands reached out to take a sip of water.
Not that spitting is confined only to men. I have seen well-dressed business women in Shanghai just stop in the middle of the pavement, press one finger to the side of the nostril and evacuate the contents of the other nostril. It was an act of precision and barely took two seconds. I couldn't take my eyes off the slimy expectorant as it flew through the air on its way to a nearby wall. I watched trancelike as the glistening phlegmboyant spittle landed and then proceeded to slowly dribble down the stonework - the pull of gravity drawing that stringy green mess to its new resting place on the ground.
Pardon me while I heave.
It doesn't matter what country you may be in, spitting is a disgusting habit ....and it's a health hazard. Those globby splotches all over the pavement and roads, and sometimes meandering down the sides of cars because men in America seem to like spitting out of their car windows at 45 mph, are full of germs bathing in that phlegmy mess. At one point in Britain, because of the increase in cases of tuberculosis, police officers, bus drivers and traffic wardens were issued with kits containing swabs, evidence bags and gloves and spitters were fined on the spot.
At least China is putting on its best face for the Summer Olympics. She has introduced a new code of conduct of its citizens and has banned spitting - at least while the games are on. Signs are up everywhere saying "absolutely no spitting." Public spitters in Beijing and Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong Province, are being made to clean up their phlegm deposits themselves and pay a fine of 50 yuan (around U.S. $6). The fine goes up to 200 yuan (U.S. $24) in Shanghai.
Should make you think before you spit.