Why do Chinese people spit all over the place?

Answer 1

As a person who lives in China, I think I'm the right person to answer your question.

First, I would say I don't spit all over the place, because I'm a Shanghainese, but you're right, most Chinese do.

Where did it come in the first place?

Many of my friends had a surprising finding after living abroad for a while. Their various respiratory illnesses went away. They rarely cough now and they don't have an itchy throat at the end of the day. Then they have come to know how severely they were poisoned in the air of China. Our factories are letting tons of wastes into the waters, air, and earth everyday.

Why are they doing this still?

Then more and more people came to join the spitting group. The more they spit, the more exposed they are to contamination and infection. It's a vicious circle. Illnesses became habits, and habits became culture. They can't go around without spitting, and whenever they want to spit they do it right away. The bad thing is they carry this culture along when they come to a city like the one I live in. My wife teaches in a college. As more people flocked to this city from other, less affluent places, the school started to admit many non-local students. Then they found spits all over the place, in the corridors, in the classrooms.

Can this situation change?

But my wife had another finding after a while. She found the spits on the floor started to become less over time. For those students, spitting all over the place is part of their culture. But when they saw how others behaved so differently, they got to know they had to change. Then they learned to go to the bathroom to spit. That's how evolution happens.