Imagethief would like thank Reuters for picking up Xinhua news story on how China is vowing to make the 2008 Olympics smoke free. It's good to be reminded, from time to time, that the human spirit is measured in our willingness to undertake completely futile tasks. This kind of story gives Imagethief perspective. If there are people out there who are willing to try to get the Chinese to smoke less -- a thankless, Sisyphean task if ever there was one -- then my own labors, such as scooping desiccated turds from the cat box every evening, suddenly seem less onerous.

In fact, the task of getting the Chinese to smoke less and the task of cleaning the cat box are quite similar in some ways. I clean out the cat box every night. Every morning, with depressing inevitability, it is chock full 'o cat turds again. Just to rub it in, one of my cats always waits for me to finish cleaning the box, looking over my shoulder impatiently as I scoop before going about his businesses the moment I am done. Often while I am still hanging the scoop up. The little fucker won't let me enjoy a turd-free cat box for even five minutes.

Similarly, for every person in China you convince not to smoke in, say, an operating room or a fireworks storage bunker, there will be ten people crowding in behind him waiting to light up.

Therefore, I had to approach this story with a touch of weary skepticism. But it turned out to be full of interesting facts too good to miss. Of particular interest were the following:
"Smoking will be banned at all Olympic-designated hospitals by the end of 2007," Xinhua news agency quoted Zhang Bin as saying.
You mean that you can smoke at hospitals now? I though the brain surgery thing above was a joke.

Also, one thing that China is always good for is mind-boggling statistics. That's why I enjoyed the following:
China is the world's largest producer and consumer of cigarettes with nearly 2 trillion sticks consumed a year.

Tax on cigarettes contributed 159 billion yuan ($19.8 billion) to the government in 2005, around 5 percent of fiscal revenues.
Wow. Five percent of fiscal revenues from smoking taxes. You'd think that would dilute government incentive to crack down on smoking. If the Chinese kicked smoking as a nation, they'd have to give up nearly sixty percent of the official 2006 defense budget of 280 billion yuan (People's Daily figure). If the Pentagon is really worried about the Chinese military buildup, the solution is clear. Launch a propaganda campaign to get the Chinese to quit smoking.

It might, however, raise government incentive to crack down on smoking of smuggled cigarettes. The smoke shop in my building is only too happy to whip a bin of smuggled imports out from under counter upon request, and to sell them to you for about one quarter of what you have to pay for stamped, local brands. They might be knock-offs, but they are cheap. (I don't smoke, so I can't assess the quality with any skill.)

Finally, two trillion sticks a year. That's a big number. With 350 million smokers, by my math that adds up to nearly 6,000 sticks per smoker per year. Which seemed like a lot at first glance but is really just under a pack a day per Chinese smoker. But let's put it this way: According to the Internet, your average smoke is about eight cm long, or six cm minus the filter. If those two trillion sticks were combined into one cigarette, it would be 120 million kilometers long (you may want to check my math) plus 2 cm for the filter. That's four fifths of the distance from the Earth to the Sun. Put that in your pipe and smoke it.