This one is quite simple, and some may even argue petty (in which case, just wait until you’ve seen a few more of these Suggestions For Kazakhstan posts!).
What it all comes down to is cover your mouth if something liquid-based is coming out, and don’t spit in public!
If you really feel the need to spit, then do it at home, where people have the choice to share the area you live in.
For a while around the time of the swine flu epidemic hysteria here in Kazakhstan, I had really hoped that people might take heed of the (surprisingly) sensible advice posted up by the authorities. However, behaviour on the street since then suggests that people still think nothing of bringing up a large amount of phlegm, or even just saliva, and projecting it onto the nearest area of ground they are not immediately about to walk over.
I might just be able to lend a small amount of credence to the overall majority opinion in this country that you get a cold from being cold (modern doctors are finally realising that the major issue isn’t temperature, but germs in the air from already infected people), if people would just stop their saliva, snot and phlegm from being launched into the air at around 50 mph!
You could argue that sneezes (and to a lesser extent, coughs), are often involuntary and come with little warning. In which case, I’ll compromise, and focus on the spitting in the street. Premier league footballers across the world gob onto the pitch, but lets be honest, they aren’t normally ideal role models for many areas in life, so why let them influence your approach to hygiene?
April 16th, 2010 12:44 am
here, here !! spitting on the street is basically yobo behaviour regardless of where in the world it is, along with dropping litter which I see a lot here as well, although having been to London fairly recently I can honestly say that many parts of Astana seem a lot smarter than London (although you gotta take into account sheer number of people in London V the relatively sparse population of Astana.)
April 17th, 2010 12:49 am
Astana might also appear to be smarter (litter wise) than London due to the amount of people employed here to sweep the streets (helps to keep the discontented jobless numbers low) and also the strong winds probably blow most of the crap out into the steppe!
That said, I’ve never actually lived in London, so can’t compare like for like really.