China apparently is the spitting capital of the world. The expectoration citadel.

Or was, anyway.

If a guy (especially) had something in his throat he didn’t want to swallow … he just let it fly. It was a topic widely discussed by tourists in China. “Hey, those dudes spit more than baseball players!”

When the Chinese were awarded the 2008 Olympics, they realized they were famous for flogging phlegm. And the government set out working hard at breaking 1.3 billion people of the habit. Which, yes, is unhealthy as well as unsightly.

And the program has met with great success, I must add. I went almost a week “in country” without seeing a single Chinese person hack up a big one and let it go.

Then it happened … today.

I was on the media bus coming back from the judo venue. Which is in a less swank part of town, Well, actually, it’s fairly seedy. Rather more like what I expected Beijing to look like. A bit run down, with people in semi-shabby clothes riding bikes and scooters.

So, anyway, it wasn’t the crowd of locals I’ve been seeing around the five-star hotels or at the gleaming new venues.

I was looking at the people, as the bus trundled along, and then it happened:

An older man, maybe 60, was walking on the edge of the road, and in the one second I spent looking at him … he bent over and spewed. Like a tobacco-chewer letting go several minutes worth of “juice.”

I almost did a double-take, having grown accustomed to the Chinese not doing what they used to be famous for. And I took another look at the man … and he spit again. Twice, in about five seconds.

Maybe to prove he can’t be browbeaten by the government?

Or perhaps he just felt like spitting, has been spitting for years and isn’t going to stop now, just because a busload of foreigners was rolling by.

Anyway, the Chinese still spit, some of them, from time to time. Just like me.