Spit Happens

Last fall the British Council held a contest asking people to submit their favorite Beijing sounds as part of a project drawing attention to sound and daily life in the city. Entries were later posted online, and as I browsed through them, in the first audio file I clicked, there it was. Buried in the usual noises of a bustling street, the backed-up traffic and cries of vendors on bicycle carts, I heard the audible wind-up, like the ripping of Velcro, but