Thank you for smoking

• Source: Global Times
• [10:55 June 24 2010]
• Comments

By Zachary Franklin

The two storeowners step out of their shops, pull out a pack of cigarettes and light up. It doesn't matter that their shops are inside a shopping mall. It doesn't matter that there is a no smoking sign on the wall a few meters down. It doesn't matter that there has been a ban on smoking in public places since May 1 in Shanghai.

Since the opening of the World Expo 2010 in Shanghai, the city has undertaken a major anti-smoking campaign. More than 150,000 new no smoking signs have been put up in parks, municipal buildings and restaurants.

The irony is that although the World Expo might have spurred the government's anti-smoking campaign, it was at a conference inside the Expo Park that the director of the Shanghai Municipal Center for Disease Control and Prevention delivered a speech noting that the number of smokers in the city has grown over the last decade and 61.8 percent of the adult male population now smokes.

I say, let the locals do it.

The aforementioned tobacco statistic doesn't scream that smoking regulations need to be tighter. It doesn't indicate that cigarette companies are infiltrating our lives. And it certainly does not elicit scary images of the cases of lung and throat cancer that will spring up in the future.

What it does say is that smoking is a cultural norm in Shanghai. When about 60 percent of Shanghai's adult male population smokes, and that is an increase from the previous decade, that's a pretty large group of smokers.

Would one deny part of Shanghai's culture over the World Expo? No wonder the ban isn't working. One can't reverse a century's old smoking habit precisely on May 1 to save face for the international visitors.

By the way, the purpose of the World Expo is to understand different cultures. Why is the rest of the world being denied the chance to see a cultural practice such as smoking? If it's about showcasing culture - and smoking is as much Shanghai culture as wearing pajamas on the street - why should culture be denied?

Last week several Chinese newspapers ran articles that noted how many people are getting into Expo Park and still being able to smoke - Expo Park is a smoke-free zone, and lighters are prohibited. Clearly, smoking is so inculcated in Shanghai society that people cannot go a few hours inside Expo Park without a cigarette. They need those little sticks of tobacco, and are willing to do anything to smoke them, even in a "forbidden zone." Perhaps the security personnel should stop checking for metal lighters and start patting down people for matchsticks.

In any other city, anti-smoking campaigns might seem reasonable. In Shanghai, denying residents their cultural birthright is criminal.

I say, stop being so highbrow, stop trying to adhere to international norms, because it isn't Shanghai. Smoking is culture, and the sooner those Haibao statues get cigarettes to puff on, the quicker this city can come to embrace this part of its culture.