Spitting is mad in a civilized society
China Daily  Updated: 2006-02-24 05:39

Spitting is an act of one's own will, the purpose of which is to expel unwanted fluid from one's mouth. It is a personal decision, but when it pollutes the environment one shares with other people, or the act itself disturbs other people, it becomes a nuisance.

That explains why random spitting has been targeted as a bad habit or uncivilized act for many years, and will be for many years to come.

Beijing municipal government announced that it will launch a campaign from late March to address such uncivilized acts as random spitting, littering and failing to remove dog excrement from pavements.

The fact that a personal act has become the target of a mass campaign speaks volumes for the notoriety of such a habit.

The habit is so notorious that it has never been left out of any public campaign against uncivilized acts. But it is so obstinate that it has never been rooted out and does not show any sign of ever being completely stopped.

We all know spitting is a physiological and instinctive need, but to have the awareness of where to spit is a habit developed in one's daily life.

Very few people have developed the habit of spitting on the floor of their own homes, because they have been educated from their childhoods that their homes should not be contaminated by spittle.

Sanitation workers working in Beijing's Tian'anmen Square said that only a tiny percentage of visitors spit on the square because the environment here is too clean to bring about such physiological reaction from strollers.

So, these two facts attest to the fact that many people have not developed the awareness that they should treat public places the way they treat their homes, and that many public places should not cause people to pour extra fluid from their mouths onto them.

Beijing municipal government plans to address the issue in two ways: cans with special bags to contain spittle will be placed on streets for those who cannot control their physiological need to spit, while a maximum fine of 50 yuan (US$6) will be given to those who spit randomly.

The plan sounds reasonable. On the one hand, it allows those who do have the need to spit to do so. This seems a humanistic approach. On the other hand, heavy fines will be meted out to those who contaminate the environment with disgusting spittle.

But it will undoubtedly be very difficult to put the latter approach into practice. Fines can only be inflicted when the spitter is caught red-handed.

In the first place, more guards will have to be employed to catch them, but who can tell how many will be enough? Then, video cameras will have to be used to provide evidence for penalties.

Needless to say, it will be too costly to carry out the measure to the letter.

It will be very costly as well to have enough spittle containers to meet the need.

If we do place enough such containers in public places, such a move seems to encourage the habit of spitting and therefore it is undoubtedly not a sensible way to root out the habit.

However, we do believe that the efforts by the Beijing municipal government will get somewhere.

Efforts to keep public places like streets or pavements as clean as possible may create a psychological impact on those who have the habit.

Yet, educating children not to spit randomly is the fundamental remedy to root out this uncivilized habit.

(China Daily 02/24/2006 page4)

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