New No Smoking Law

In a couple of days public smoking will be outlawed in Beijing.  This is big news considering that China produces more cigarettes, and smokers, than any other country in the world, not surprising considering its size.  But if you've lived in China for any time you know that it's more than just China having a huge population.  It seems like EVERYONE smokes in China. 

During our first week here in China our family went to a traditional noodle restaurant.  It has come to be one of our favorite restaurants, partly because of the excellent noodles they serve and partly because of the atmosphere.  It feels like you think China would feel like, and in Beijing this can sometimes be hard to come by.  When you walk in you're greeted with clanging dishes, loud waiters and even louder customers, and a blanket of smoke so thick I'm sure you lose about four years of your life by just looking at it.  It was here I received my first gift from a Chinese.    Now Chinese gifts range from anything like a bottle of wine to a James Brown bobble head [I'm serious about the bobble head.  A student gave us one for Christmas this past year].  But on this occasion, my very first experience with Chinese culture, I was given a cigarette. 

This should have been a sign for me, a Beijinger wants to make a family of foreigners feel welcome so he passes out cigarettes.  But I was so caught up with the excitement of experiencing a new culture that it went by totally unnoticed.  No sooner than the excitement wore off culture stress set in.  And that's when I started noticing how many smokers there were in Beijing.  Co-workers smoked in the office.  Of course they opened up a window...in the middle of winter.  I honestly don't know which was worse, the smoke or the cold.  It's hard deciding between lung cancer or pneumonia.    Students smoked in the bathrooms, it was like I stepped into a Brownsville Station song.  Strangers smoked on buses or in elevators.  I even had a doctor blow smoke in my face as he took my blood pressure for my health examination.  To me, that's the most startling smoking statistic.  It's not that 3,000 people die every day in China due to smoking.  Or that Chinese consume an estimated 1.7 trillion cigarettes per year - 3 million cigarettes every minute.   Not even the fact that in rural areas smokers spend an average of 60% of their personal income on cigarettes is as startling as 60% of doctors in China are smokers, representing the highest percentage of smoking doctors in the world.

If the people who know better, the very people who should be telling you not to smoke are lighting one up with you after an examination [or even during one] , then how can I expect the average citizen to be health conscious about smoking?  It should be interesting to see how this new law plays out.  After all, China truly is a smoking culture.  They have hookah bars for crying out loud.  I even have a student who has a "smoking master".  If you're like me you're probably wondering what a smoking master is.  I was informed by this student that it's basically a smoking teacher.  He teaches him how to get the most out of each puff, how to roll his own cigarettes, how to choose the best types of tobacco, etc.  But I think my favorite thing I've seen in China with regards to smoking is the the "Sichuan Tobacco Hope Primary School".  Little children actually attend a school named after tobacco! Any idea what their school motto is?  “Genius comes from hard work, Tobacco helps you to be successful”

Just before the 2008 Olympics Beijing received a major facelift.  Building were remodeled, sections of the city were walled off from public sight, other places were demolished, people were encouraged not to spit in public and smoking was banned from all restaurants.  It was during this ban that me and a friend entered a restaurant and sat down to enjoy a smoke free meal, only to find a group of Chinese men smoking UNDER the no smoking sign.  After talking to the staff we received a few laughs, a couple of 没事's [it's no big deal] and were eventually told that smoking was a part of Beijing culture.  Apparently my friend was having one of those "I hate China" days because he just went over to the sign and ripped it off the wall. 

I imagine that this new law will actually turn out to be just like the old Olympic law.  Restaurants will hang up some no smoking signs, "propaganda" pamphlets will be printed and passed around, videos will be made and played in the work place and in schools; but in the end I won't be holding my breath for anything to actually come from this law.  Well on second thought, I guess I will be holding my breath...in the restaurants. 

烟抽得厉害 ，


托马斯

Left, Right, Left...

It's a gross understatement to say that I have a bad memory.  Just ask my wife if you need convincing.  My memory gets even worse the further back in time you go, but there are things from my past that I do have vivid memories about.  For example, I can remember sitting in my living room and my Mom teaching me how to tie my shoes, and no, I'm not talking about last year.  I can also remember my Dad teaching me how to hit a baseball and my grandpa teaching me how to fish.  And perhaps one of the most important things, though unbeknownst to me at the time, I remember learning is how to properly cross the street.

I know this sounds simple enough.  And at the time i thought the same thing.  How hard can it be?  Just put one foot in front of the other and stay out of the way of things that are bigger than you.  It's not exactly rocket science.  As a five year old I remember thinking to myself "isn't this unnecessary."  And then I moved to China and found that it was.  Now I thank my parents every day for teaching me this most valuable lesson.  I can't tell you how many people I see each day who come within inches , or should I say millimeters, of losing their life.  And most of them are totally unaware of their near death experiences.

Before moving to China I heard some crazy statistic about four people dying each day in Beijing just by crossing the street.  At the time that number seemed high, and even caused a little apprehension about my first road crossing encounter.  But now that I've lived here for four years i think that number, if anything, is too low.

No one, and I mean NO ONE, in Beijing follows the street crossing rule my parents instilled in me those many years ago.  It was a simple rule, only three words: left, right, left.  Not only was the rule simple, but it was also easy to follow.  Look to your left to see if anything is coming.  Look to your right to see if anything is coming.  And then look to your left once again.  It requires no more than a few turns of the head.  And a few extra seconds out of your life seems a small price to pay to insure that you're not dead at the end of the day.   But apparently this is something that Chinese parents do not pass down to their children.  Or at least one that was never truly learned.

Forget the left, right, left principle, I'd settle for just the look left!  Every day I see people step into the bike paths without ever looking left.  I see cyclists and sanlunche's zip past busses trying to make a left turn.  I've even had to completely stop my car once on Third Ring Road because some genius decided to play human frogger.  If you've never been to Beijing and witnessed it first hand you truly can't appreciate the gravity of the situation.

I ran bumped into a pedestrian the other day on my bike, I had the green light, he had the red.  And yet he still had the audacity to genuinely be shocked that he was hit, as if it were all my fault.  Of course I didn't stop and see how he was.  As a laowai, no matter who's really to blame, I'd be the one at fault.  So instead I hollered back at him, while pointing to the RED crossing signal, "you have the red light, I have the green one, Paco.   I'm not so sure Paco translated correctly in Chinese.  But I am sure he got the point.  Although I doubt this incident deterred him in the least from stepping back into traffic, at his next intersection, without ever looking. 

If you've read this hoping to glean some insight into the Chinese way of thinking, then you've read in vain.  If you're read this article hoping to learn the much needed secret to crossing the streets of Beijing...sorry, you won't find it here.  I just needed to vent some frustration.  That's why this blog entry is categorized under the "rantings" section.

小心行事，



托马斯