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this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2024
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If you want to experience this sensation today, travel to Russia or Japan. Yes, Japan. People don’t talk enough about how prevalent smoking still is over there. As a non-smoker, the number of restaurants or cafes I could go to without getting sick was diminished by about 90%.
So I literally just touched down on a flight from Tokyo (haven’t gotten off the plane yet) and actually not really. They’re more like America in the 00s. A ton of smokers and everywhere has to say you can’t smoke there, but you can’t smoke anywhere anymore. It’s definitely weird that they have to say no smoking on the Shinkansen, but it doesn’t smell like smoke
Tokyo is the exception not the rule. Go anywhere else and you'll start seeing a lot more smokers.
Oh was the city I spent most of my trip in that was a multi hour Shinkansen ride from Tokyo also an exception and not the rule? Because I spent three days in a factory there and dealing with Japanese engineers and factory workers and it’s the way I describe. Maybe Osaka or Kyoto are different but they’re closer to where I was than Tokyo is. For all I know Hokkaido is a perpetual cloud of cigarette smoke. But I hit up two factories in two cities that aren’t Tokyo and my experience holds. Tokyo is just where my airport was.
Yes. That's like saying everyone in America acts like New Yorkers.
Ok but if I drove to and spent time in by Albany and Milwaukee after flying into NYC and found that there seemed to be major social changes that had happened that notably had happened in other places first I think I’d be reasonable in telling people that America seems like it might’ve undergone some cultural shifts or at least it appears to be in the process of it.
So yeah believe me or don’t. Maybe I hit relatively low smoking areas. I know executives in Japan at least in my company are still stereotyped as absolute chimneys. But when I was in three cities in Japan over the past week I didn’t see or smell much tobacco use at least not a huge amount more than in America. The country certainly couldn’t be compared to America over 20 years ago, I remember by eyes burning from the smoke at restaurants back then and my lungs are terrible these days.
So to stick with factual statements: in the three cities I was in I witnessed not many people actually smoking, enough “no smoking” signs and announcements to find it notable, a couple of cigarette vending machines, two smoking floors in one hotel to 5 non smoking (no other hotel specified in the elevator, but none of my rooms smelled of smoke), no indoor smoking sections in any restaurant or public transit I took, and none of the people I spent days collaborating with took smoke breaks. And I don’t recall seeing anyone smoking while waiting for a train. I hypothesize that Japan has recently moved towards the anti smoking reforms that were effective in other countries, but I may have just been in the wrong places to see it or missed it. I’m just some lady on the internet, for all you know I’m lying.
Guys, found us another white knight weeaboo who will raise to any occasion to use his two week guided tour through Japan as a shield against even the slightest mention of something that isn't perfect in his utopia, Japan.
Sure you got me. I’m an absolute weeb and white knight who took a vacation and was excited to get into an argument about it. Definitely not someone who was there on business and actually pretty excited to see much less smoking than I’d expected and was honestly just happy to get her first out of country experience even if she had to spend the majority of the time working and didn’t get to really see anything because the factories are in bumfuck nowhere.
I will admit, I was guided by an engineer I work with who happens to be from there. You see I never bothered to learn Japanese because I don’t really have a reason to learn except for business. That’s a guided tour right? Business meetings, factory tours, going out to dinner where my coworkers and business contacts suggested, and occasionally wandering around near the hotels?
Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m just avidly defending a country that I’m appalled by a lot of their actions including in present day because some people really love their media. Or I just thought you were wrong, was met with hostility and jackassery, and presented my arguments for why I think this country may be experiencing a cultural shift.
You on the other hand, should go take up chain smoking