HEALTH EXPERTS and tobacco control officers in China have started pushing the notion of tobacco-free weddings as part of the country’s anti-smoking drive, but are struggling to convince people not to light up at wedding parties.
About 300 million adults in China smoke and 540 million people of all ages are affected by second-hand smoke, according to industry estimates quoted by the Xinhua news agency.
More than half of Chinese men smoke (including almost half of all male doctors) and 2.4 per cent of women, although that figure is rising.
The smoking ban introduced by the health ministry in March has been fairly successful.
It is remarkable to notice how China has been transformed almost overnight from a place clouded in cigarette smoke into a relatively smoke-free environment.
However, as smoking is so much a part of the cultural norm, it is proving difficult to get people not to light up at weddings.
At a typical wedding, each place setting is completed with a packet of cigarettes alongside a bottle of baijiu (white spirit).
The bride moves through the tables, lighting up the cigarettes of male guests and pouring a shot of baijiu.
“Prohibiting smoking in wedding receptions is an effective way of raising public awareness,” Lu Yajuan, the head of the tobacco control project for Shanghai’s disease control and prevention centre, told Xinhua.
Mr Lu said the centre started to recruit volunteer couples-to-be early this year to hold tobacco-free weddings, but just a few of the 200 couples it reached promised to hold non-smoking ceremonies.
“So there remains a lot to do to make tobacco-free weddings a popular practice in our country.”
A big problem is that while young couples were aware of the dangers of smoking and backed anti-smoking rules, their parents were less enthusiastic, and few couples wanted to have tobacco-free weddings as they were worried about losing face or alienating their parents.
In just two cases were receptions held without cigarettes: one in Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang province, where the couple donated the 2,800 yuan (€330) saved to a charity for children, and the other in Zhaoyuan in Shandong province.
A number of wedding service agencies have also advertised a “romantic wedding without cigarettes” on popular microblogging sites.