Beautifully Clean, Horribly Dirty.

A friend was visiting recently and she couldn't get over some of the crazy cleaning practices here in China and the stark contrast between some of the dirtier habits. One of these issues has hit the headlines very recently, the Bladdergate incident and this has prompted me to write about this.

Rather than starting with the negative I' d rather start with the positives, and perhaps slightly ludicrous practices here in China.

1. Sweeping: There are permanently elderly men and women sweeping the roads, bike lanes and pavements with twig brooms. Swirling dust around and gather leaves and fallen blossom.

2. Water: It completely makes sense that they would water the plants that are in between the lanes of the road, however to water them using a hose that seems similar to one you would use to put a fire seems somewhat bizarre.

3. More Water: The road is swept and washed with the same hose that is used for watering the plants. 

4. Flowers: The previously mentioned flowers that are between the lanes of the road are in beautiful patterns, also mathematically placed and replaced on a regular basis.

5. Gardening: Every park I go into I see around 4 people working throughout the day, even picking up individual fallen leaves and meticulously pulling out weeds one leaf at a time.

The negatives.

1. Spitting: It's as much the preceding sound as the actual spitting. Be careful where you walk and ride your bike as near misses are a frequent occurrence.

2. Toilets: This is probably a far worse issue than the spitting. Many babies and toddlers wear split pants, I refuse to show a picture of these, and so no nappy and when they have to go the parents let them go anywhere any time. I understand that children need to go, however public toilets do exist and certain locations are highly inappropriate. Many try to say that the practice of urinating and defecating in the streets only happens in rural China and this is not true. 3 incidents that stick in my mind is that of a child urinating in a brand new mall 50m from the public toilet, another is a teenage boy defecating on the floor of the neighbourhood centre 100m from the toilet. The final incident happened very recently. A young boy was being held on top of a post and encouraged to pee across the bike lane, thankfully not so far that he could hit me.

3. Litter: As there are so many people sweeping and cleaning the roads people appear to think that it is ok to throw their litter anywhere even if they are right next to a bin.

4. Food spitting: A Chinese delicacy is chickens' feet and these obviously contain lots of tiny bones. As they are eaten by hand the small bones as they inevitably end up in their mouths they then spit them out wherever they like.

On any given day I both love and hate China all at the same time. The Bladdergate story, despite some of the Hong Kong locals perhaps not doing the right thing in filming the incident I believe  that there is some justification to their outrage. Is it ok to use the street as a bathroom if you are a certain age? I am being intolerant? Are the people of Hong Kong being intolerant? Being culturally sensitive is important, however can you be too sensitive and turn the other way when maybe you shouldn't?