While most of the countries in the world tend to fight against smoking
by restricting the smoking area to some sections only, by using campaigns on
TV or by raising the tax on tobacco (or is that later one a hypocrite way to
steal more money from the average tax payers?), it seems that in Japan, the
proportion of smokers is still amazingly high.
Why are there vending machines selling all sorts of tobacco in the street
(there is a sign which says it's forbidden to smoke until you're 20, but who
cares?)?
Why can you find disgusting public ashtrays under bus stops, from where the
smoke of a still lit cigarette will pollute the whereabouts, while it's so
hard to find a mere trash bin?
Obiousbly, the government is not really helping in that matter, and the
reason is quite clear when you read what the Minister of Finance owns 66
percent share of Japan Tobacco, according to the anti-smoke-jp.com
website.
This website also gathered several facts about absurdities such as a
shameful translation of the World Non-smoking Day Slogan, offices
where smoking is allowed and there's nothing you can do about it,
etc.
Obviously, I am not a smoker. Or so I thought... More precisely, I am a second-hand
smoker, just because having a normal social life and keeping your lungs
clean are just not compatible in Japan.
Or because the only difference between the smoking section from the
non-smoking section (when there is one) in the restaurant is the small
non-smoking sign stuck to the corner of the table. No fuzzy logic involved
here: if you're sitting at a smoking table, it's your right to smoke, even if
the person at the next table is choking (about this, a poll on Japan Today is questionning whether smokers have bad
manners or not. I have already taken sides...).
Or also because I would be sharing a taxi ride with a smoker, and I would have
to spend the rest of my day trying to get rid of the smell on my clothes, in
my hair or even my skin... This terrible smell, so thick that that I can
almost feel it like a whole layer of dirt stuck to me.
It just makes me sick.
Another "fun" experience is to go and renew your visa at the new immigration office at Tennozu Isle: before you reach the hidden counter on the second floor, you'll have to take the escalator which starts right in front of the smoking section, at the mercy of the artificial fog covering most of the floor.
Things are changing little by little though: there are more and more restaurants where smoking is forbidden during lunch time (I suspect it's more about speeding up the flow of customers than really about fighting smoking, but that's fine with me!) or places where smoking in the open is forbidden, like in Chiyoda-ku.
This reeducation will take some time though, as in many ways, Japan is still a very feudalistic society, where rules dictated decades or centuries before are still in place and will not be challenged anytime soon, and behind which people can sometimes hide their shameful behaviour.
