Mucus

The Chinese are obsessed with mucus. They hate the stuff. They hate it so much that they have to get it out of their bodies all the time.

I will be walking down the sidewalk when suddenly I hear, "bluhck bluhck." Then the person proceeds to hock a loogie. They can be any age, any gender. Although, I do have to give credit where due, old women are particularly good at spitting.

Besides dodging pools of mucus on sidewalks, you have to watch for it everywhere. It seems to me that people spit wherever and whenever they feel like it.

For instance, I find it on the floor of the bathroom at work, just inches away from the squat pot. I have to ask myself why the person wouldn't just spit in the squat pot and flush it down. I am still waiting for an answer.

I saw one lady hock a big one on the floor of Walmart, in the fruit section. One man spat on the floor of a bus. Subway station platforms, work hallways, even outside my apartment's elevator- spit is everywhere!

At first I thought this was a quirky little Chinese trait. Now, I am annoyed almost to the point of hostility.

It never fails, someone will spit while I walk behind them. Just the thought of that sound, that engine in the throat revving up to dispel their mucus, drives me bonkers! Then you have to hear it splat on the ground and visually search for it so you don't get it on your shoes. It is like a horrible accident, you try not to look but you are compelled from somewhere deep inside.

Spit isn't the only obsession over here. Snot. Oh how they hate snot. I don't see people blowing their noses in tissues. Mainly, I see crusty old men doing what is known as the "farmer blow," aka the act of plugging one nostril while forcefully blowing air out the other, causing the snot from the open nostril to shoot out onto the ground. (I am yet to see a woman, young or old, due this, although it wouldn't surprise me.)

I have seen men do farmer blow's in the US but typically it is in the woods or in a farm field. Here in China, they do it outside their shop or restaurant door- in PUBLIC!

Another treat is provided by Beijing's cab drivers. My mouth hung open the first time I saw a guy go full force up his nose with his finger. I quickly then shut my mouth to prevent anything from flying in it.

They pick their noses whether you sit there and stare or not. Some just go for the boogs at the edge, others try to reach things stuck way up by their brain. Note to travelers: Do not shake your cab driver's hand.

I have even encountered the occasional cabbie who does all of the above. We can be driving along, he has one hand on the wheel, the other busy with his nose. Then the window will come down and the act of hocking loogies commences. Unreal.

Depending on my mood, I am either grossed out (which is a really hard thing to due) or I think the whole act is hilarious. There are no in-betweens.

The point of this all, in a round-about kind of way, is to explain why it is that Chinese people take their shoes off before entering a home. You just never know what is coming along with you for a visit.