Public smoking banned in HK ... Mainland next?

I'm in HK (formerly Shanghai). It's basically how salem describes -- more smoking on the streets. It's also banned in public parks as well (with lovely signs!), but there are still people smoking there, at least on the Kowloon side. My workplace and its building on HK Island has been smokefree for as long as I can recall, so don't know about smoke in the workplace.... though it sure was a shock to go to my favorite Japanese restaurant and find that I could actually breathe.

People generally do smoke less here in HK, but what is odd is the number of women who smoke. I've lived in Harbin, Beijing, and Shanghai and have been to friends' homes in the countryside and smaller towns and have never seen the number of women smoking as I do and have in HK.

i just came back from hongkong and funny to find that more people are moving to smoke along the street instead. every trash bin on the steet surrounded by few guys in cigarettes. it is a good policy to freshen air indoors and polluted outdoors. beside, the government seems visioning, as i also discovered that, the ashtray on top of the trash bin could only be used for cigarettes, other than that would cost you HK$1500 penalty!

I think the the non-smoking policy works, but I don't think China is quite ready for it...There are definitely a few other public policies China could take on before this.

I'm from Hong Kong and just moved to Shanghai a few months ago. We just went back for New Year's and its working. LIke all other cities that's done this...a la San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York City!..it takes time and some "comfying" up to but overall, its worked! Three fold..its better for the Public, its better for you, and you don't smell like S*&@! after going out!

Yours,

Ex-smoker

I think it would be virtually impossible for it to go worse than I would expect in China. Heck, I'll be impressed if they just stop smoking in elevators and hospitals.

I too spent the last few months in HK... in general my experience was that HK has fewer smokers (% wise) than Shanghai and the underlying "English-ness" which still taints the population means that smoking in restaurants (for example) is not so common anyway. The ban on smoking there will be suitable controlled and well accepted... as for the mainland, we can only hope. BUT... many people said the Irish could never agree to it, then 18 months later that the Italians would never agree. On the whole, my experience in most countries who introduced this legislation is that it goes smoother than expected.

I was in HK for a week right before the new year. During an TV interview, one health official said that the new regulation would hopefully make public smoking less socially acceptable to the degree that it sort of shames smokers so much that they stop doing it. I find that quite an interesting comment. I suspect that there would be less public smoking on the mainland once that is not the social norm, once people actually appreciate the smoke free environment and start to frown upon public smoking. Right now it almost seems like the hip and proper thing to do to smoke in public. I have to say that my skin didn't take the pollution and public smoking well when I was in Nanjing and to a lesser extent Shanghai. Maybe they should emphasize that more in the media... Maybe all the Chinese women and a few metrosexual men would demand a smoke free environment.

it's impossible to stop public area smoking.

in my opinion.