As you might guess from its headline, Sedaris considered the prospect of visiting China itself as a less-than-appealing proposition: "'I have to go to China.' I told people this in the way I might say, 'I need to insulate my crawl space' or, 'I've got to get these moles looked at.' That's the way it felt, though. Like a chore."
Chinese loogie-hawking at least has a purpose: "We Chinese think it's best just to get it out," a dinner companion explains, noting that Chinese find Western use of cloth handkerchiefs equally disgusting. No such rationale exists for the blithe comfort Chinese seem to display with their own according to Sedaris, the Chinese are a people who gleefully defecate everywhere, dropping trou and planting yams in bathroom sinks, on the sidewalk, in supermarket aisles and on the surface of skating rinks.