A National Blight

When doing prep work for my trip to The Middle Country, I read of a national problem being addressed by the government concerning the behavior of the citizenry.  It wasn't until I arrived that I realized how serious and deep seeded the problem actually is.  It was obvious from the time we de-planed, and has just become more and more apparent what a scourge it really is.  Bluntly, China has a spitting problem.  The non-art of loogie hocking and spitting seems to be a national obsession, causing natives and foreigners alike to cringe and run for cover when the familiar sound is heard from behind. Just yesterday I was walking down some stairs leaving a toilet when I heard the dreaded sound echoing in the ceramic tiled stairway behind me.  I thought about all the great places there are in toilet rooms to spit...sinks, toilets, trash cans...any number of places really.  But no.  This man had saved his loogie for the stairway leaving the facility.  As he released his projectile, I prayed and waited to hear it hit something, anything hard, and not my jacket or pants.  Thankfully the spitball rang off some ceramic and I knew I was safe from his snot dropping.  We spent the day walking to the sounds of the non-art, sometimes slipping on the frozen remains on the sidewalks.  I can now feel for a government desperate to correct this horrible problem.  Ad campaigns can only go so far.  In the end, every person must be responsible for his own loogie.