In China people smoke, smoke, smoke
Years ago our young children used to sing a song "In China people plant the rice, plant the rice, plant the rice". Now I am in China, admittedly only for a week and that's not what the people in China are doing! The people in China are smoking. I am attending a conference in the northern city of Dalian, a huge seaport and a rapidly developing city with a population of 6 million people. Walking downtown here is like walking down the streets of New York between the soaring glass tower blocks to the sound of hooting cars and screeching brakes.
And everyone is smoking. There were tea breaks at the conference and at the first break I dashed out of the hall to grab a cup of coffee, took one breath and dashed straight back in again. The air was blue with smoke. I couldn't breathe for cigarette smoke. The conference consisted mainly of Americans and Chinese. A few of the Americans smoked and all of the Chinese smoked. In the hotel dining room and in restaurants there are Chinese smoking. The cab drivers and bus drivers smoke - it looks like the national pastime.
I came back to the hotel last night after walking out in the street for a while and was hit by the smell of smoke as I entered the hotel lobby. The 12th floor, where my room is, is clearly naked, "Non-Smoking Floor". You should smell it!
It's now years since the western world relegated smoking to the history books as a nasty habit that once was popular and is now largely out of fashion. China has something to learn. The Chinese are learning everything else they can from the western world and hopefully they will pick up our better attributes as well.
