Gross subject matter (2004-03-25)
Somebody out there must be saying,"You only write good things, you never have anything bad to say about Japan." Oh yes, but I do.
First of all, let me say that there ARE a great many more good
things than bad things anyone can write about Japan. Once you break the
language barrier and get to understand the people and the society as a
whole, you can't help but give praise to this country and its people.
But that's not what I'm going to say today, I want to tell you a bad
thing many Japanese men do that's utterly gross.
They spit! And they are almost always male.
Spitters treat the shoulder of streets like it's one big chamber
pot. You see more of them in the suburbs than the touristy areas. These
people can hawk a loogie with such poise and ease that you marvel at
their skill. When KL and I had the flu with a very phlegmy throat, we
tried the whole day learning to spit into a tissue. We would dislodge
the phlegm but we could never hawk it and always ended up swallowing
the damn thing.
I was once walking in a busy side street in Shibuya (
). The area was
chock-full of people and this WOMAN in front of me suddenly tilted her
head back ever so slightly and with a loud "Aaaarrrrhhhhggggg...Choo!"
shot an ugly green slime out of her mouth that landed inches from my
right foot. She just kept on walking as if emptying her throat of gunk
in full view of everybody was a feat she's proud of sharing with the
fifty or so people aroung her. How could she?! I froze dead on my track
and was totally disgusted. I of course only saw the back of this woman,
I presume she's Japanese and not of anther race. (Chinese are also
notorious spitters.) But I was disgusted all the same.
As much as a nation that prides itself on cleanliness to an
obsessive level, spitters are a kind of their own. All I can say
is watch your step when you are in Japan.
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