The other day when I was meeting some people at Hirakata station, I was greeted by a group of people holding signs, which appeared to be about not smoking. They handed me a pack of tissues with a big no smoking sign on it, and uttered something that I could not understand. There was even a person videotaping the scene, so it must have been a big deal. I took my photos to a few Japanese friends, and they said that there has been a recent ban on smoking in Hirakata streets and at the station, and these were government workers warning people about the consequences. After several searches, I could not find anything more than the basics of the issue, so most of my information is from Japanese friends. According to http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/nn20070714a5.html, they are a group of ex-policemen that are making the issue known to the public. My friends said that recently there have been arrests for being caught smoking on the streets near the station so it is still a problem despite the government interference (maybe this is from other foreigners who didn't know it was banned!) In the future, they will be issuing 1,000 yen fines for being caught smoking on the streets. This came as a suprise to me because Japan seems to be so free with their cigarette consumption in public places, so I would imagine that streets would be a safe place to light up. It is good news however, especially with the knowledge of the problems associated with second hand smoke, but the more important ban is smoking inside of restaurants, bars, and karaoke rooms, where the smoke actually harms people.
2 comments:
Smoking is certainly a good topic for a post on Japanese politics.
Here are a couple of related posts:
http://visualanthropologyofjapan.blogspot.com/search?q=tobacco
I think the group in the Japan Times article from 2007 is probably different than the group in Hirakata. I agree that this is a good step. But since the Japanese government owns a large chunk of Japan Tobacco, they harm themselves by banning smoking. Ironic, thus the seemingly contradictory messages being sent out.
When you talked with your young Japanese friends, what were their attitudes towards smoking?
I had to go to the building in front of hirakata's city hall, in the area I saw some people with those clothes but also in the National Health insurance floor in a window you can see from outside some hiragana's character written "yameyou arukitabako", took a picture but didn't have time to post so i'm glad to read yours!
Post a Comment