Scientific: Smoking, Feelings, Desires, and Tibetan Culture

"When we put off our last mask, we will lose our face" (Wenn wir die letzte Maske ablegen, verlieren wir unser Gesicht), attributed to Hans Kudszus

China will reportedly put a ban on smoking in most public places (but spare workplaces).

Quoting a BBC report which says that a corresponding regulation shall come into effect on May 1, FOARP expresses doubts that it will really matter in daily life.

I agree. And if it did matter, the Chinese authorities wouldn’t have done themselves a favor. Let’s learn from this  anti-tobacco website:

Stressful situations can bring you back to being a slave to Nicotine. The real test was Joe’s first stressful situation. His mother had two heart attacks and three strokes within one year. Unable to cope with all the new added stress, Joe began to write Nic-the Habit,while along the bedside of his mother, who could no longer speak.

Smoking a cigarette was the last thing in his mind. The Tibetan culture taught Joe to be strong and to find the strength within to combat feelings or or desires that were destructive, such as smoking and over-eating.

I’m not familiar with the Tibetans’ smoking habits, but I do know the Han-Chinese habits, and the keywords in the above quote should be “feelings” and “desires”. I’ve heard a more blunt line in the past: “Smoking kills Feelings”. For sure, it adds to dampen them.

You see, so long as you inhale, you can’t speak. You’ll start coughing if you try. All the nasty things you might say otherwise, stuff like Let’s gather at Wangfujing for some happy window shopping today, will go unsaid.

And for that very reason, the Chinese authorities would be very ill-advised if they implemented the new regulation thoroughly^*).

Cigarettes are handy tools of social management, and – all things taken together – they come with tax revenues, rather than costs for the state. They will continue to do their share in protecting the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics. To this end, they will make Chinese netizens more tolerant of the complexities on the internet, for example – if you let them be.

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Note

^*) Before you accuse this blogger of advocating the extinction of the Chinese nation by force-feeding them opium nicotine and tar, please be informed that this blogger smokes, too.

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