Today I ate soba noodles for lunch, and I was amused at a sign I saw above my head, which said narubeku kin’en, translatable as “No Smoking As Possible, Please.” I found it quite amusing for the restaurant owners to ask customers not to smoke “if they can possibly avoid it.” Although smoking rates have been falling in recent years, the Japanese do smoke quite a lot, with 41% of males and 12% of females currently lighting up, which compares to 27% and 24% in the U.K. and 24% and 18% in the U.S., respectively. Tobacco was introduced to Japan by the Portuguese during the 16th Century, and it took hold quickly, with a traditional pipe called a kiseru very popular throughout the Edo Period. Today cigarettes enjoy a rather unique status, since the Japanese Ministry of Finance is the majority stockholder in the country’s largest tobacco company, and regional economies get 50% of the taxes collected on cigarettes by law. One area where the industry here has shown vision has been preempting some of the negative feelings about cigarettes by promoting good smoking manners, as with the “Ah! Delight” and “Smokin’ Clean” campaigns that show smokers being considerate of others. Japan often seems custom-built to confound Westerners, and it’s interesting that a country that smokes as much as it does still manages to enjoy long life spans, something that generally goes against expectations in the West.
