Posted on 06/03/2003 1:26:41 PM PDT by Enemy Of The State
Phlegm: China's Public Enemy No 1?
By David Bandurski
SHANGHAI - Pre-projectile grumbles once met with more or less universal tolerance in China, where clearing one's respiratory tract was as natural and necessary as the morning yawn.
But these are tough times for hawkers and hemmers across China. Over the past several years, the nasty habit of spitting has met with growing intolerance, particularly in China's major cities. Last year, spitting had the dubious honor of making it to the top of Shanghai's municipal list of "Seven Don'ts", which exhorted residents not to "spit just anywhere" - disorderly street crossing and green-space trampling came in a close second and third.
Now, as society is mobilized against the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), pressure on the expectorating masses has intensified. Spitters are seen as unconscionable disease spreaders. Beijing announced last month that it would impose fines of 50 yuan (US$6) on anyone caught spitting in public; in the capital, violators are also compelled to wipe their records clean, as it were. Shanghai has pledged fines of between 50 and 200 yuan for the ooey-gooey offense, as has Nanning. And enforcement should bring in healthy revenues for Hong Kong and Macau, which are charging 600 and 500 yuan respectively.
Authorities in Changsha, the capital of Hunan province, apparently think fines alone are insufficient. They announced on Friday that five days of "labor education" would be required for anyone caught spitting (seven days for the "uncooperative"). According to a report in Changsha's Sanxiang Metro newspaper, about 95 percent of offenders currently doing labor time in Changsha were taken in for hard drug offenses, a sobering indication of just how strong the official aversion to spitting has become.
Indeed, public tolerance has now morphed into vicious rage. One caller to a new "Lousy Habits" hotline in the northern city of Harbin railed against spitters in the early hours of last Friday: "Before, when I saw people spitting wherever they pleased I just thought they were of low character," said the caller, as reported in the Harbin Daily. "Now, with SARS, I see this kind of behavior and it makes me absolutely furious!"
But on May 27, the western municipality of Chongqing offered a hint as to just what a sticky issue this really is. A Chongqing resident was caught spitting in the city's Yang Jiapin Pedestrian Street as he emerged from a local shopping center, the Chongqing Daily reported. After police slapped him with a fine, the man countered angrily that the reason he spat on the street was the incredibly poor quality of Chongqing's air. "With air like this, you're damn right I spit," he roared. "I've been spitting for decades! If you want that fine, you run off to the Environmental Protection Bureau and collect it!"
By this time, a sympathetic crowd had gathered around the hapless hawker: "Chongqing's air sucks!" they cheered in unison. "And with the heat besides - of course we're all full of mucus!"
One has to admit they've got a point. After all, China's ambient air quality has long topped World Health Organization (WHO) studies. One such study back in 1995 showed that more than 50 percent of the 88 Chinese cities monitored for sulfur dioxide in China exceeded the organization's minimum guidelines for safety. Some of these cities recorded sulfur-dioxide levels that exceeded the guidelines by a factor of 10.
That was some time ago, of course, and China has since taken a number of measures to tackle this problem. They have installed dust-removing cyclones on boilers, constructed taller stacks and relocated polluting industries from urban areas. The new "Energy Conservation Law", which went into effect in January 1998, promotes energy conservation nationwide - but these provisions are very general and the real key is to get local governments to act on these.
Booming coal consumption, which fuels the engine of China's economic development, means that more drastic measures will have to be taken if air quality is to show any real improvement. In fact, particulate levels in most Chinese cities have remained largely unchanged over the last ten years. This may seem an accomplishment when one considers that coal consumption has doubled over that period. But try telling that to the hawker in Chongqing, who's breathing the same bad air he was 10 years ago.
In fact, about 75 percent percent of China's energy demand is still met with raw coal consumption, even while the world average has dropped to 25 percent. China is expected to consume about 1.37 billion tonnes of coal this year, and the nation's energy demands continue to rise in tandem with its "miraculous" economic development. The country's reliance on coal is not expected to change over the next few decades.
Vehicular emissions are another menace. A sharp increase in personal automobile use, combined with urban crowding, are compounding the problem of air pollution in major cities. It doesn't help that car ownership is now being valorized in the name of social and economic progress. Over the last two years, the auto industry, which recorded the highest average industrial growth in 2002, has become one of the most important growth factors for China's domestic economy.
The total the number of cars manufactured in China topped 1 million in the first quarter of this year, roughly equal to production in the first six months of 2002, and total car production this year is expected to reach 1.5 million units. By 2010, that number should hit 4.2 million. The math is quite simple - more cars will mean more urban pollution. Which will mean a more phlegmatic public, right?
According to Chongqing officials, that's just a bad-faith rationalization. "Poor air quality is not the cause of lung congestion and spitting," said Jiang Kemin, head of the city's SARS task force, who called the violator's explanation for his own behavior "laughable". Congestion is a disease, he said, which can be caused either by inflammation of the lungs, or by physical factors such as use of coal gas or chronic smoking.
Chronic smoking. Now there's a health issue this nation of smokers - 68 percent of all men in China smoke - should tackle. A study conducted by the Chinese Academy of Preventive Medicine three years ago showed that less than 50 percent of Chinese smokers surveyed even understood that smoking was a leading cause of lung cancer. The WHO has estimated that 20 percent of the 10 million people expected to die of smoking-related illnesses worldwide each year will be Chinese. But new anti-smoking legislation is not on the table, at least for the foreseeable future.
But what about that pack-a-day air?
The link between air pollution and phlegm may just be an excuse for the ill-mannered. But this isn't exactly your standard dog-ate-my-homework excuse. Rationalizations, like generalizations, may sometimes bear a kernel of truth. China's new spitting laws are ultimately designed to safeguard the public health. That's a good thing. But you'd have to be a bit over-credulous to believe China has more to fear from a little phlegm than from wholesale environmental pollution or widespread tobacco use.
Chongqing's crowd of self-acknowledged spitters were simply making the commonsensical suggestion that officials shouldn't address petty infractions while they turn a blind eye to larger health issues. After all, when juxtaposed against the smoke stacks of Chinese industry, one spitter on Yang Jiapin Pedestrian Street seems to diminish in importance. This is not to suggest that spitting should be returned to the happy realm of tolerance (God forbid!) - but problems must be put in perspective.
And while we're cracking down on China's peccadilloes, why don't we address that ugly chewing-gum problem? After National Day celebrations last October, China's official media reported that more than 600,000 globs of chewing gum had been trampled into Tiananmen Square. The estimated cost of the cleanup effort, which required an entire month, was put at 1.1 yuan per glob for a grand total of 660,000 yuan ($80,000). It seems the next logical step would be implementation of much tougher "Gum Laws".
Anything to keep our minds off those inefficient, polluting and unprofitable state-owned enterprises.
I saw a man walking on a sidewalk (Shanghai, 1989) while a woman was brushing it. He thought she had brushed dirt on his shoes so he just hauled off and punched her - without saying a thing. She then brushed some (more) dirt on his shoes. He punched her again. She brushed dirt on his shoes again. Etc - at least 5 times before my bus pulled away. They may still be there! After all, they both thought they were winning!
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