6
Thank You for Not Smoking
www.gwangjunewsgic.com
February 2022
FEATURE
Written by William Urbanski
A
bout a dozen years ago, I woke up in the middle of the night clutching my chest: It was hard to breathe and felt like someone was pressing their knuckles into my ribs. It was the night after a particularly long day at the beach with my friends during which I had made my way through at least a pack and a half of cigarettes (Peter Jackson Light was my brand). Before this night, obviously, I knew that smoking was bad, but it all just seemed like a big joke and a way to stick it to the man. But lying there on my bed (then eventually on my floor), I realized that my smoking habit was catching up with me. While I did not quit right away, this was a major turning point in my so-called smoking career and one that I would think back on frequently in years to come. Fortunately for me, the decision to move to Korea was the second major turning point in my smoking career and the real impetus to quit for good. Since coming to Korea involved both diving into an unfamiliar culture as well as working around children, it was (and is still) my strong belief that being a smoker would not only create a bad first impression but the wrong impression. While Korea’s liberal attitude toward smoking in the early 2010s certainly tested my resolve, in the past decade there has been a substantial reassessment of smoking policies that has made it easier to not light up. If you enjoy smoking, I have no problem with that. Seriously, just do your thing. But if you are one of the many, many smokers who would like to drop the habit,
2022�02��.indd 6
the good news is that in Gwangju and many other parts of the country, the writing is literally on the wall that 2022 is your year to quit. THEN VS. NOW: SMOKING IN KOREA Seollal is a chance to reflect on the upcoming year and also a time to look back. Glancing into the metaphorical rear-view mirror, one of the biggest changes to have taken place in Gwangju, and in Korea as a whole over the past decade, is a reappraisal (at least officially) of smoking. When I first arrived in Korea in 2011, smoking was a lot more accepted and commonplace than it is today. Back in those days, it was very normal to see people smoking in restaurants, bars, noraebang (노래방, karaoke rooms), PC rooms, and many other indoor places. Teachers at one of my elementary schools even used to pop outside between classes for a butt, then come back in reeking of the stuff – a practice that was officially not allowed but tolerated nonetheless. In addition to being allowed to smoke in most places, cigarettes used to be dirt cheap: no more than two-thousand won per pack. Had I not quit smoking mere months before arriving on the peninsula, I would have thought this was smoking heaven. But surely enough, each and every year, there are more and more restrictions that are imposed and enforced. Smoking in restaurants, of course, is a no-no (just like in most indoor places). Many public spaces, especially
2022-01-24 �� 1:25:11
