Smoking

Prompted by a snippet on Rachel's blog, I decided to discuss the subject of smoking real quick here. Europeans and Americans have very, very different attitudes on this subject and I think it's fascinating.

In Europe, almost everyone smokes. Moreover, there are very few public places where you CAN'T smoke, which means that if you walk into any regular restaurant, you will very likely find half the place lit up in a cloud of nicotine. When I first got to Germany this drove me crazy. I couldn't go out without my clothes stinking and I always wanted to take a shower afterward.

Moreoever, it's completely legal for cigarette companies to advertise the same way any other companies do. You will see billboards, signs, banners, bus advertisements, and even heart-string-tugging cigarette previews at the movie theatre. One preview for a company (I think it was Next) went on about "We want to make the world a better place" and at the close showed an entire intersection full of pedestrians all holding up cigarettes and smiling. That was definitely an odd experience.

Europeans are very laid-back about smoking as well. If you smoke, it's not really a big deal and no one really seems to care. Everyone knows that it's horribly unhealthy for you but that doesn't seem to make much of a difference either. I have no idea what the rate of lung cancer or other smoking-related diseases is here in Europe but you sure don't hear ANYTHING about those kinds of diseases (in contrast to the States, where you're constantly seeing anti-smoking ads trying to convince you that secondhand smoke is the single greatest threat to your health).

In the States, the general attitude toward smoking is absolutely the opposite of that in Europe. Smoking carries with it a huge stigma and is frowned upon greatly by almost everyone. I was recently watching an old FRIENDS episode (the one where Rachel smokes) and I was shocked watching the characters react to it. Monica wouldn't even SIT next to Rachel after she'd smoked because she just "stunk." After almost 5 months of living in a completely different atmosphere, I was absolutely blown away by this sudden resurfacing of the American way of thinking. It not only struck me as incredible, but rude (which goes to show just how much my attitude toward smoking has changed). But behavior like that is perfectly acceptable in the States because smoking is so taboo.

My attitude toward smoking has changed drastically as a result of being here. It no longer bothers me greatly to go to a restaurant and sit next to or among a bunch of people who are impersonating chimneys. I've accepted the fact that my clothes will smell like cigarettes and have harnessed the power of Febreeze when I go home. No need to wash clothes over and over again now, no big deal. Yes, I'm breathing in a lot of "secondhand" smoke every day just by being here, but so is the rest of this continent and they're doing just fine.

I just can't relate to the old American smoking stigma anymore. I fail to see why it's such a huge deal. I mean yes, it's HORRIBLE for you and if you do it for a long time it will eventually kill you. But I just can't freak out anymore when someone lights up around me. I don't see the point. I would be really interested, like I said, to see the rates of smoking-related diseases and cancers here in Europe, because judging from the number of smokers here it must be astronomical (yet, oddly, we hear nothing about it here).

Anyway that's the cultural quip of the day, folks.