China is the world’s largest tobacco market. The Chinese Government is addressing the tobacco problem but the response is probably not enough. Here is a paper I wrote with Bao Jia Tan on tobacco control policies in China. (154)
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Smoking in ChinaChina is the world’s largest tobacco market. The Chinese Government is addressing the tobacco problem but the response is probably not enough. Here is a paper I wrote with Bao Jia Tan on tobacco control policies in China. (154) 8 comments to Smoking in ChinaLeave a Reply |
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Very recently went on a tour in China. Our meal in a very western style restaurant in Chongqing was to be followed by 6 month birthday celebrations for the baby son of a law lecturer from Chongqing University. Each table had a bowl placed in the middle with chocolates for the guests, and a packet of cigarettes which we were told was a necessary part of entertaining.
The other interesting aspect of that evening was the huge photo of the little boy on a stand in the foyer. He was wearing those pants with the split for toilet training. The posing in the photo and the wide spread of the pants was designed so that the little chaps gender could be admired by all who entered.
A brief trip is of course very unlikely to provide much understanding of a culture, but another quirk they had seems to me to demonstrate as the previous 2 examples do, the disconnect between what the Chinese say and what they do. All of our buses had safety belts, apparently made compulsory in recent times. However they were wound tightly around the struts under the seats and closed so that, if you managed to get them out, you had probably arrived. This was not occasional but virtually all belts. Tour guide advised that they were so arranged because they were irritating.
Ros, your first example is important. Cigarettes are seen as a part of the gift culture. The elaborate packaging largely devoid of health warnings and without any graphic anti-smoking images is a problem. China is committed by international agreement to act on these things.
Smoking in public places is illegal but the law is widely flouted. Its an instance of your last point.
On environmental issues generally China has a host of laws and regulations that are not implemented. Passing new laws is often not the issue.
I hadn’t noted the issue of displaying young children’s gender. There is a preference for boys!
Sorry, have now read your paper through. Your discussion of owners of public places being reluctant was our experience in most places. Even in our hotels we had to share lifts with smoking Chinese on more than one occasion. One of our party, the first time it occurred started to ask the smoker to stop and then bit her lip. However much many of us decry the nanny approach to problems such as smoking it did seem that there is no disapprobation attached to smoking in China. Very different in Hong Kong. Again a short trip is very inadequate but our Chinese guides made a point of telling us that Chinese people are not as respectful of others as we westerners tend to expect. We were told to push and shove as the Chinese certainly do. Queuing was non-existent, until it was about the ubiquitous security checks, then line up , stand on the spot, look into the camera without question. It seemed to us that the culture is not much attuned to avoiding disadvantaging others in many respects, in contrast to the friendliness we nevertheless experienced many times.
Another problem which seemed to us also to be paid lip service only was the problem of garbage. A trip along the Yangtze was negatively distinguished by the never ending garbage and no birds, saw 4 in 4 days. We were told that they were all eaten, don’t know how serious that was. The garbage, in a side trip from Wushan up the Daning River the guide chatted about the rubbish boats doing daily clean ups as we gazed at the constant stream of garbage floating past.
I will never recover from the women’s toilets, and the smell of urine in the hutongs in Beijing. Heard a UN chap on radio talking about the problem of toilets for women, eg in schools, in the developing world, he didn’t mention China.
Prior to our visit we hadn’t known that land can only be owned by the government Now understand how it is that corrupt officials can hand over farms and homes and the occupants be forced out. The protection of the hutongs we concluded, served as does native title here, to work as a poverty trap for those who live in them. As it was explained to us they were owned by all members of the extended family, and could not be sold, so were not an asset for the occupants. I understand some very few that were not owned by families have been gentrified for tourists.
Don’t know what I think of China but it is certainly exciting and hardworking. Or just plain awsome.
It is changing Ros particularly in the larger cities. There is no smoking on Peking University campus where I worked. But in a cafe run by a nearby hotel for university visitors people occasionally smoked and staff dutifully gave them ashtrays. In Tianjin I saw a large screen TV in a shopping mall blaring out anti-smoking messages all day.
Its a poor test but you casually notice much less smoking in large cities than when I visited China in the late 1980s. In rural areas and smaller towns however it seems little has changed. Smoking is something that normal males – not females – are expected to do. Its the non-smokers who are seen as being a bit curious.
I think being bumped into and lack of queue discipline is just something you have to live with. Is it a consequence of living in a crowded country?
The toilets are improving in the larger cities but the best tip I found was to use those provided at hotels and don’t drink a lot of beer over lunch if you are travelling. I experienced threats to the integrity of my personal plumbing following a large, fairly liquid, lunch in Shanghai last year. I was stuck on a bus for a nerve-wracking 50 minutes – I then broke the world record for the 100 metre dash.
Improper land seizures are a major source of social discontent in China. They are even criticised in the China Daily. Its appalling for some of the most disadvantaged and I think a function of the way Provincial Government finance their operations in China.
We considered whether it was a consequence of crowding, but Hong Kong is also very crowded and the behaviour there is so very different. Our Chinese Tour Director and most of the guides warned us that we would experience discomfort because of the Chinese propensity to push hard, and to shout. For example on our river cruise we, the westerners, were fed separately from the Chinese tourists. It was not a lack of room, there were tables for all guests. We were told on embarking that we would be eating separately because we would not enjoy the Chinese inability to queue and vigorous shoving at the buffet tables. Don’t know how true that was.
Are the university environments more open? Except in Shanghai our tour chitchat included stories about what a great chap Mao was. However a young Chinese postgrad mate in Australia told me that Chinese youth thought very poorly of Mao, but then the student was from Shanghai. One story that emphasised for me the difference in our societies was in telling us about the lack of young people and the excess of males the guide concluded with the government was thinking about how to solve and then they would tell them. Imagining Australians being told that the government was developing population policies and would let us know what was what was an amusing thought.
We wondered amongst ourselves what would be the effect on China if they needed to import large numbers of foreign workers. Though we were told that the ethnic percentages had been noticeably altered by the one child policy for the Han Chinese, maybe that is their solution, and of course they have in places changed the one child policy. Alternatively what about employment when the huge construction workforces were no longer needed?
While we were in Hong Kong there was much discussion underway about citizenship rights for their large contingent of foreign manual and servant labour.
So the male toilets are far from fun as well.
In Japan – where the main cigarette manufacturer was owned by the government (I believe it’s now 50%) – the anti smoking waring on packs read
“Please try not to smoke too much. It is not necessarily good for your health”.
Its scary stuff. These are the warnings that the US Surgeon General recommended at the start of the 1960s.
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