Japanese Smoking Habit is Unbeatable

For many Japanese, smoking has been for many years associated with manliness and hard work. During Japan’s quick-growing period in the 60s, when the smoking rate for men constituted 80 %, higher than the rate during America’s smoking flourishing. In a country that is smoking friendly, it is no wonder that anti-smoking programs do not have much effect. All this despite that fact that about $90 billion were spent on smoking related health costs and diseases annually, it is approximately three times what tobacco products bring in annually, according to the statistics.

“The matter is that Japanese love for smoking is so strong, it was even a real support for the Japanese national policy,” said anti-smoking representative Bungaku Watanabe. It is not strange that the main offices of Japan Tobacco- the leading tobacco manufacturer in the world are situated in Tokyo. Japan Tobacco is the largest government-owned company, which has lobbied many anti-smoking initiatives. For instance only a quarter of American men light up, as about Japanese males the estimates demonstrate that one-third are heavy smokers. Anti-smoking representatives state that the majority of Japanese smokers really wish to stop smoking, and would do if the cigarette prices corresponded to that of first-world countries.

But with the growing rates of lung cancer, there seem to be some changes. On the city streets where previously smokers easily threw away cigarette butts, now they have been driven away to separate places of buildings and train stations. Mina Abe and Kota Osabe have offered a fanciful alternative; they stand in the so called smoking areas of Tokyo restaurant waving green plastic pipes that they hold as regular cigarettes. They fightingly fill the air with bubbles instead of smoke. “This is like an ashtray and we decided to fill it with soap that we can blow balloons with. Everyone say that we are crazy. When I demonstrated this for a TV program, people laughed at us and one boy even tried to shake off ashes in my bubbles,” Abe said.

“If you want to reach out to some influential people, you have to be part of his/her community and namely smoking one. It is a problem to get to those people, you wish to talk to, you do not even want to light up, but you feel as you should do it in order to be a member of that community,” Kota added. “Without their daring nicotine offers, shy Japanese often do not dare to quit their addictive habit,” said Hima Furuta, the owner of Tokyo restaurant. “Usually smoking areas serve as a communication space for Japanese people as they are not used to communicate with different types of people.” Furuta said.