Something About Smoking

Firstly, I need to claim that I myself do not smoke:)

However, I still want to talk something about smoking culture in China and Australia.

1.Price.

One day, I went into a convenience store and asked the clerk the price of cigarettes for a survey. He told me that the lowest price for cigarettes here was 20 Australian dollars. This shocked me! Because in China, it’s almost the price of a pack of top-of-the-line cigarettes. The cheapest pack costs 1 dollar.

2.Package

The package of Chinese cigarette is very exquisite. There is fine gilt pattern above, famous mountain and beautiful flower, as if competing to tell the customer: I am very high-grade and beautiful, come to buy me quickly!

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The funny thing is that, even though the words “smoking is harmful to health” were printed on every packet of cigarettes, the words were even beautifully printed. And they usually hide in places that are hard to see.

I can say that the box of Australian cigarettes is very simple, even disgusting. Because every packet of cigarettes is printed with the diseases caused by smoking, with the slogan:“smoking causes……(mouth cancer/unborn babies)”

According to a survey, Australia takes cigarette warnings very seriously. They also have the largest number of package warnings in the world, 75% for the front and 90% for the back. The horrible picture of the box covering such a large area made many smokers lose the desire to buy.

3. Smoking Culture

In China, tobacco is not just a consumer product, but has been integrated into the traditional culture and customs, as well as human relations and accidents. In China’s tobacco culture, people of lower status will respect people of higher status by smoking in order of hierarchy. When a group of strangers meet at a party or for other reasons, they would also get quick relation from each other through smoking together.

However, Australia has never had a similar smoking culture. Instead, its smoking population has almost halved since 1991. I think the reason for this is the horrible pictures printed on their cigarette packets. Cigarettes are not fancy, so people do not give them away as gifts, and people themselves reduce their desire to buy cigarettes.

In short, compared with Australia, the number and proportion of smokers in China are far more than that in Australia. Although smoking is never the right thing to do (in my eys), the reason for this fact is not only due to the influence of traditional factors, but also due to different regulations—-In China, buying cigarettes is an important way to boost consumption and raise taxes.

At the same time, compared with Australia, China has more people engaged in manual labor and rely more on some functions of cigarettes to maintain production and life.

it is something I have get about smoking culture from my life experience and researches. And lastly, I would like to advise you not to smoke, cause that’s harmful to you health!

From Caesar