Tarnished

So I totally Febrezed my hair this morning. For those of you who know me well, you know this is not the first time this has happened, and I am afraid it will not be the last, especially living in China. They smoke everywhere in China. In the year before I left to come to China, Columbia had begun to ban smoking all over. Now I will own up to it I have a weakness for smoking particularly when I drink, but I prefer to sit in a restaurant or bar that is smoke free.

For a long time in America smoking has been banned in elevators, office building, hospitals and all those “common sense” type places. Well that is unfortunately not the case in Xi’an. Of course I cannot speak for all of China because I have only ever been in this one city, but it seems to be a very cultural thing. All men seem to smoke whereas women, especially older women, don’t.

To me smoking tarnishes an environment. I don’t mind it in bars because, well let’s be honest tarnishing is a main factor in why we go to bars, we don’t go there to be calm and stay clean. But smoke in my home bothers me. I don’t like walking out of a shower into a room that smells of smoke. I don’t like walking out of a classroom full of 8 year-old students into the smell of dad’s huddled around an ashtray. I will get off of an elevator if someone gets on with a cigarette; but I must say the most disturbing of all is the hospital. Whether it is a clinic or a multi-functioning medical facility there is smoking; smoking in the waiting area, smoking in the cafeteria and smoking in the rooms. Doctors and patients alike smokey smoke smoking.

The whole separation of smoking by gender is fascinating. At home it is young girls who start the most and keep smoking. Everywhere you go girls are smoking, tell a girl something is an appetite suppressant and watch them flock to it in hordes; but not in China. None of the girls I teach with smoke, most of the women I see in restaurants aren’t smoking, asking upon the notion I found out that women who smoke are kind of seen as “bad girls,” rebels if you will. I find this fact appalling and amazing all in one.