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It's dialectical
(thelemmy.club)
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this post was submitted on 31 Jul 2026
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Thanks for being less lazy than me.
My wife was involved in an international thingy about tobacco control and harm recently and when she came back with gifts of ciggies from the chinese delegation I had a double take so I looked into Chinese attitudes and anti smoking measures. It seemed wildly poor form to gift tobacco obviously.
It was very informative, and I came away from it thinking they were doing a reasonable job given the size of the state and the low reach of government authority into rural population/attitudes towards smoking in east and south east Asia.
The gift thing is that apparently tobacco is considered a respectful and universal gift, but also it probably allowed them to spruke/talk about their national monopoly which they were very proud of, and took perverse joy in ridiculing the state of Australian black markets pointing out that it was inevitable if prices kept rising and that Australia should nationalise tobacco.
I probably shouldn't be that frustrated that nobody knows much about the state of things, I didn't. I didn't have strong opinions on it though. So thanks for providing the quotes.
Culture clash will do that tobacco is still a huge part of Chinese tradition and life but it is changing with each year the rate of smoking decreasing as younger people are less and less interested. Basically none of the younger guys at my work smoke and smoking was never really big amongst women.
High quality (premium) cigarettes are THE gift especially for major events (usually weddings). 中华, 南京, 黄鹤楼, 芙蓉王 being some of the most popular brands. I would genuinely not believe someone if they said they went to a wedding or similar event in China and weren't offered/gifted at least one pack.
Edit: Other gifts are common too red packets, premium alcohol, fruit, premium tea and others but cigarettes are definitely one of the most common.
Yeah these were crazy, ornate glossy packaging, golden (possibly gold coated or gold leaf foil inside) they smelled amazing. I've been clean about 15 years and damned if I didn't want to light one up.
I don't think it was deliberately disrespectful, no more so than the way diplomatic gifts usually carry layers of meaning and assertions of superiority and independence.