So gross

I remember once in a university Philosophy class reading a very funny paper written on American culture from an anthropologist's perspective. The way in which it was written was so wry; examining the many strange 'rituals' American men and women participate in including: wrapping a piece of decorated fabric about the neck (wearing ties) and reclining inside heated solar shells to cook the skin a golden brown (tanning); on and on it went detailing our ridiculous pursuits in a hilariously serious tone of voice. I honestly can't recall the exact details but it was such a fresh perspective on what it means to look at and experience another culture from the outside, the gist of the paper has stayed with me for years.

And so it is with this open minded attitude I've experienced the very foreign world around me for the past four years. I've marvelled at social customs and inherent habitual activities all the way from India to Iran and then some and I've come away a better, more educated, more well-rounded person for it. But something is terribly wrong here in Nepal and it's not the Maoists seated in Parliament. Woven within the fabric of life in this country is the incessant habit of hawking up snotballs and spitting them loudly and wildly in any direction that happens to suit the spitter. I don't really see how spitting can be tagged a cultural phenomenon but, apparently in Nepal it is so socially ingrained as 'acceptable' that men and women alike spend inordinate amounts of energy sucking all the goo out of their throats clear down to their intestines and spitting it out.

It happens at home, it happens in public, it happens in taxis, it happens at dinner over momos and 650 ml. bottles of Tuborg beer, it happens in the morning during the brushing of teeth (toothpaste spit is dispensed of in an equally disturbing manner: off the roof or balcony into the street below). I have heard and born witness to more loogies than I care to recount.

And it's just so gross.

Our neighbor to the back gets up every morning, early, and stands on the roof of his building with a toothbrush in one hand and a cup of water in the other. After much energetic tussling with the dental work he puts down his hygeine tools to stretch his arms, swing them side to side and then with all the gusto of someone about to puff into a trombone he snarfles and gurgles until every last drop of loose fluid has congealed in his mouth, swings his arms some more, and then spits it all out into my garden below. Not only do I have a problem with his giant piles of ick in our rosebushes but I wonder every time I witness this ritual why on earth he doesn't spit first, brush later. The logic escapes me.

Today we were returning from lunch and as our taxi rounded the corner toward our house I spotted one of the single most beautiful human beings I've ever laid eyes on. She was probably 15 or so with long brown hair, a plump face, and the natural beauty of someone who doesn't spend an ounce of energy on upkeep. She was dressed plainly, idly sitting and talking with two boys outside a little market, playing with the folds of her long not-particularly-stylish skirt - but she was so, so truly pretty I wished I had my camera. And then, forever shattering the artful image of her lovely face in my memory, all at once her features contorted into a mask of raised-eyebrow, flared-nostril sniffling and I heard her breath raking through her chest, collecting gunk on it's journey through her body. She then turned and spit the stuff out in a long stream that reminded me instantly of Popeye for a reason I still can't place; and as she did, her eyes caught my own now-horrified expression but there wasn't even a whisp of embarassment in her face. She then wiped her doll mouth with the back of her hand, kissed her boyfriend, and wandered off down the street.

I realize I'm a guest here but I can't help think that this kind of behavior, in America...at least the part that I'm from, would be social suicide for a girl, pretty or otherwise.