From Spiegel Online (link):
Hosting the Olympics means doing a lot more than building a few stadiums, as Beijing is finding out. On Wednesday the Chinese authorities launched a campaign to clean up the way people in the city behave. One of the biggest challenges is to ban public spitting.
In preparation for the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing, the Chinese government said Wednesday it would introduce a new code of conduct for its citizens: no slurping of soup, no trying to push to the front of lines and, most of all, absolutely no spitting.
…Whether the Chinese government can actually change people’s behavior from above remains doubtful: After all Germany’s campaign to get people smiling in time for this summer’s football World Cup, has been going for months now. But as yet there is no sign that dour Berliners are looking any more jovial.
