Every morning, I walk down a dedicated bus corridor toward the subway station. It’s the terminus of a large number of both local and long-distance bus routes, and literally thousands of buses a day–full buses–traverse this route. This is a relatively dangerous road, because even bus drivers are very impatient in China and attempt to pass each other in the wrong lane and other similar shenanigans. Oh, and due to an enormous construction project, there are no sidewalks. You take your chances dodging buses and always try to move in groups. There is safety in numbers.
Thousands upon thousands of people pass through this place every day. The street is thick day and night with the constant movement of people. And where there are people, and there are buses, and the buses only stop at very limited places, you’re bound to have some sick people mixed in among them. And so it happens that the streets flow with vomit, because this is indeed the Great Hork of China.
I’ve only been in my current apartment for 3 weeks, and already, the average is once a week that I witness someone puking their guts up on the sidewalk. While watching out for buses and bicycles and motorcycles and rickshaws you also need to watch out for random puddles of vomit and land mines of baby poop (people don’t use diapers here, babies and children just crap on the sidewalk in full view of everyone). While making my way toward the subway station, I dodged a pile of vomit. And just then, I heard something out of the ordinary… “hurrk… HURRRRRK…” and I wheeled around–making sure I wasn’t in the splash zone–just in time to see a guy a few meters away bend over and with a loud “HORRRRRKKKK!” puke his guts up all over the sidewalk. I’m sure to him, the loud splat was satisfying, but to the woman wearing stiletto heels and unfortunately in the splash zone, it was decidedly disgusting. For my part, I wondered why I had to be so lucky to get two vomit puddles for the price of one.
Oh well. At least I didn’t get it on my shoes.