[Reader-list] Directive on Launching Activities to Transform Vile Habits

[Rana Dasgupta]

The politics of spitting in China - SARS favours the new clean regime.

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SARS Makes Beijing Combat an Old but Unsanitary Habit
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL


BEIJING, May 27 — As Mr. Liu sped along the path at Bei Hai Park here, the
rumbling in his throat became louder and more intense. A restaurant cleaner,
Mr. Liu had a dollop of phlegm to dispose of, and was rushing around the
lake to go out the park's west gate.

"No one would dare spit in here these days — you'd get fined a lot and no
one's paying wages," explained Mr. Liu, who declined to give his full name
but said he had recently been laid off because SARS had decimated his
restaurant's business. "In the past no one cared. You spat where you liked.
But with SARS everyone's paying a lot of attention."

In its battle against severe acute respiratory syndrome, China is tackling a
unique challenge. Spitting is a longstanding Chinese tradition, and spitting
potentially spreads SARS.

As a result, to supplement temperature checks and hand-washing posters, the
Chinese government has contributed a new weapon to the world's war against
SARS: little white plastic spit bags that are handed out in parks and malls,
the hardware for a wide-scale antispitting campaign.

Last week on Wanfujing, a shopping street, volunteers dressed as Lei Feng,
the legendary Chinese soldier and do-gooder, pressed bags into the palms of
passers-by. At the gate of Bei Hai Park last weekend, pretty girls wearing
sashes promoting the 2008 Olympics staffed a table where bags were
dispensed.

The bags read: "Spitting on the ground is dangerous to your health, and spit
contains infectious diseases. But with one small bag in your hands, your
health will always be invincible."

This week the Communist Party Central Committee's Spiritual Civilization
Office gave its imprimatur to the war against spit, issuing a "Directive on
Launching Activities to Transform Vile Habits."

But old habits die hard, and in China there is hardly a more ingrained habit
than this one, practiced frequently by men, from lowly peasants to powerful
leaders. Deng Xiaoping, the Chinese leader who ushered in the era of
economic reforms, was a famous spitter, renowned for his aim.

Until recently, in fact, Chinese leaders had ceramic spittoons placed by
their chairs during banquets and ceremonies to greet kings, politicians and
business executives. In Chinese culture spitting was regarded as not
particularly offensive — far less disgusting than nose blowing, for example.

But as China opened its doors to the outside world, its leaders quickly
realized that other cultures took a less sanguine view of the arcs of phlegm
that filled China's air.

Current leaders do not use spittoons, and if one tries to enter "spit" and
"Deng Xiaoping" or "Jiang Zemin" into a Chinese computer search engine, the
screen goes blank. Censors have apparently decided that Internet browsers
should not go there.

In recent years the government has begun several campaigns to discourage the
habit but until now has met with only limited success. The floors of train
stations and hotel lobbies were still dotted with drying gobs, and the
sidewalks were a kind of obstacle course, to be navigated with care. Along
came a little coronavirus that could live in phlegm, and attitudes quickly
changed. Newspapers are filled with antispitting propaganda. The little old
ladies of the street committees are now busy stopping spitters in midstream
instead of ferreting out neighbors belonging to the banned Falun Gong
spiritual movement.

Just as New York's new restrictions on smoking have set off battles between
smokers and nonsmokers, Beijing has seen a rise in nasty brawls between
die-hard spitters and their foes.

Last week a young spitter threatened and cursed 83-year-old Chen Yongyun
when she admonished him, The Beijing Evening News reported. Lately Ms. Chen
has been roaming her neighborhood in the Hepingli district with a spray
bottle of disinfectant, squirting any phlegm she finds on the ground and
covering it with dirt for extra protection.

With efforts like those, the sidewalks have become safer. Ren Chonghua, a
sweeper in Bei Hai Park, said: "It used to be all over, and I used to spend
my entire day sweeping it up, especially around curbs and ditches. I think
the situation is much improved."

But no one is suggesting that spitters give up the habit altogether, just
that they avoid spitting on the ground. For most older Chinese men, phlegm
is regarded as an unavoidable byproduct of heavy smoking and pollution, and
it is taken for granted that it must go somewhere. The government recommends
that phlegm be spit into a tissue or a spit bag and then thrown in a bin.

"'I used to spit," said Lu Xiufeng, 68, a retired machinist in Bei Hai, with
a stubble of gray on his head and on his chin, "but not anymore, since we
are paying a lot more attention to ordinary hygiene. You wait and then use a
tissue when you have to spit."

But as he spoke, he kept clearing his throat, his face becoming
uncomfortable and his voice increasingly hoarse as the minutes passed.