Study shows Chinese spitting leading to sea-level rise

Who conducted the study?

Me

What authority do I have?

My brother has his PhD and my cousin is working at NASA

The very technical results that you probably won’t be able to understand, you dimwit:

Geeze, they sure do spit a lot.

I like to think of myself as an open-minded, culturally sensitive fella who doesn’t lump 1.3 Billion people under the pronoun “they.” But today, this happened:

My hotel room in Yichang is on the 15th floor and I heard a voice that sounded like it was standing just outside my window. This puzzled me. I went to the window – nobody. I looked below me – nobody. I finally pin-pointed the voice to be directly above me. My curiosity satisfied, I pulled my head in fractions of a second before a big ol’ loogey zoomed by. He was aiming for me. I didn’t dare chance a menacing look up at the spitter for fear he had another locked and loaded. I did the next best thing. I stuck out my arm as far as I could and gave him the finger.

I’m not saying all the people in China are spitters, but on average I see about 63 spitting incidents/day, most of which aren’t of malicious intent. Today, I even saw someone spit onto carpet. Is it the polluted air? A fascination with Baseball (but there’s much less crotch adjusting)? Who knows?

According to my research half of Chinese people aren’t spitters, but those who are do so multiple times/day. Building upon this study, here are the numbers:

Number of spitters: .65 billion
Volume of spit: 3 grams
Avg. # of spits/day per person: 10

30 grams X .65 billion = 19.5 billion grams = 19,500 tonnes of spit/day. That’s a “spit load” of spit. And to think Al Gore didn’t even mention this in his movie.

Note: My math is a little fuzzy and I actually do have better things to do than figure out the specific weight of spit to convert this number into a volume. All you scientists out there take this idea and run with it. I smell world changing research in your future. Or maybe that’s just the pollution.

 
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Joel says:

If you listen not-too-carefully, you’ll notice that there’s almost always a two-second warning before the spittle flies. I’m really curious to see how the Western media handles these kinds of things during the Olympics.

ne veteran foreigner gave me this advice after I’d just bought my first bike and was about to hit the streets for the first time: “Pass on the left; spit on the right.”

Just in case you’re ever in a crowded bike pack.

Melissa says:

Ha ha! I’m such a nerd…I was thinking 3g sounded like a lot of spit. And, being that I am in the lab today I almost went down to the scale to weigh some spit…but I stopped myself. However, if in the name of research you would like me to weigh some just let me know!

Kelsey says:

Ah yes, you’ve found a flaw in my figures. If you read the study that said the average spit was 3 grams, you’ll see that it is tobacco spit. For me that was close enough. But you scientist like your precision. If you really want to weigh the spit, go ahead. I would be interested to know the volumn per day of spit in China. I would guess that would be easy for you to do. Let me know if you find the “results.”

Jamie says:

First I would like to thank you for listing me as an indirect reference to your intelligence.

Second I have heard from my Chinese friend that they are actually spending a great deal of money to “clean up the image” of Beijing… aka stop people from spitting

Third, I’m now on the phone with my father and he says hi.

Joel says:

the government still makes wide use of long red banners with slogans/propaganda on them, at least in our city. you can’t miss them. Most of them here have something to do with “sanitation” or “hygiene.” My teachers say that those always refer to spitting and throwing trash on the ground.

Melissa says:

OK–the result is in. I just weight what would be a normal spit for me, and it was 0.25g. I then weighed some spit with a little more effort behind it at it was 0.31g. It was just saliva, and I’m a female, so spit two times that weight wouldn’t surprise me. Up to a gram wouldn’t surprise me, especially if there was something that had to be spit.

Ufff, back to work. Mike doesn’t read this, does he?

Kent says:

For me, it wasn’t so much the actual amount of spit that grossed me out. It was more the horking pre-spit sound that really got me. It was CONSTANT, especially on the 27h train rides.

Kelsey says:

Joel, I’ve seen these posters. I have a pic of one where a fish is catching spit from a guy in a boat. Maybe it makes sense if you can read Chinese, but I’m guessing that it probably doesn’t.

Jamie (My NASA cousin), an “indirect reference to (my) intelligence.” Is that all the closer we are? Here I thought that you were going to climb the NASA ladder and arrange for me to be one of their first space tourists.

Melissa, you spit like a girl and not a Chinese girl because those ladies can really work up a hocker. But seeing how you are a scientist and all we’ll go with your results. Thanks. Am I going to get a bill from Purdue University for use of one of their labs and their researchers to measure spit?

Melissa says:

First spit weighing is free

Lynne says:

“Spit” has generated more conversation and response than anything you have entered here so far, Kels. What is wrong with you peope?!??!

Kelsey says:

Melissa. You gots me hooked on the spit weighing now. Now I’m gonna have to pay for it. Smart. Evil but smart.

Joel says:

If you want to see some (translated) slogan banners from around our place, click here. We used to post one once a week, but we’re moving back to once a month. I’ve got the mother of all slogans waiting to go up, after our blog gets fixed.

Let your voice be heard!