In mainland China public spitting is very common. Hearing the sound of
somebody clearing their throat from way deep down and then horking out
the product is a frequent daily occurance.

I want to understand this phenomenon ahd hope to have 2 questions
answered in order to increase my understanding:

1. Why do the mainland Chinese value the clearing of the throat more
than other people? What benefits do they believe are derived from this
expunging?

2. Why do they not feel socially inhibited from engaging in this
anti-social act? In most other societies this behaviour is considered
extremely rude and socially malicious. Why not in China?

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Clarification of Question by augusta-ga on 22 Nov 2004 01:18 PST

I regret the misuse of the word expunge. I've since checked the
definition and have found that it doesn't describe what I was
thinking.

Please replace the word 'expunging' for 'purging'.

My understanding is that the Chinese have many other disgusting habits
- descriptions of them eating are pretty foul

I expect that they will take on the Singaporean rules of conduct.

If you hear the sound of nail clippers on the NYC subway, you can be
sure they are coming from a Chinese person.

Disgusting habits can be more narrowly defined as public behaviours
that involve viewing of digestive processes and engaging in behaviours
that could possibly spread bodily fluids.

The reason that so many cultures have taboos around these body parts
and processes is to limit the spread of disease and to constrain
sexual behaviour.

For some reason the non-sexual body taboos are very weak in mainland
China. Here are some of them that I observe regularly:

Breathing System
- loudly clearing the throat
- horking up mucus / flem and spitting it out in public ares
(sometimes even indoors)
- picking the nose openly in public

Eating
- slurping loudly while eating
- speaking with food in mouth
- using personal chopsticks to grab food from common plates

Urinating
- male adults urinating in public (though keeping genitals out of view)
- parents guiding or allowing their children to urinate openly in
public (even on the sidewaltks)
- little to no privacy measures taken for urinal areas in male washrooms

Defecation
- little to report here except for once in a while seeing a human turd
on the side of the road or in the grass.

THEORIES
I've asked this question hoping to be pointed to some work that has
already been done on the topic but I already have 2 theories of my
own:

1. AGRICULTURAL VALUES
The social mores of agricultural workers and rural people are
generally looser than that of urban people. There is a high percentage
of rural people in China and many of them now live in the cities.
Also, because of their strong representation their values tend to
influence the social mores much of the urban population.

2. POVERTY
Poverty tends to make a people less civilized (or citified) and
ruddier. Because China has been poor for much of its recent history
social habits have degraded from a time when urban nicities may have
been the norm in the cities. This has started to turn around with the
rise of the quality of life but still is an important factor.

3. VALUING GENUINENESS
Does Chinese culture eschew the rigid politeness and etiqutte and
rules of manner and custom that are common in other cultures? I
suspect so. There is a stream of Chinese culture that values just
letting it all hang out and not standing on ceremnony.

TOILETS

Mainland Chinese public use toilets are invariably very smelly. There
is a stale urine smell to almost all of them. This seems to be no
problem for the people responsible for taking care of them and elicits
no consequential complaints from the people that use them.

I know that there has been research done on 'disgust' and the
yuk-reaction. Perhaps this human feeling is muted in mainland Chinese
people because of experiences during childhood.

"... the West has its own history of spitting ...":

"The history of spitting in the West"
http://league.ysu.edu.cn/yyjlb/Article_Show.asp?ArticleID=75