If you want to experience this sensation today, travel to Russia or Japan. Yes, Japan. People don’t talk enough about how prevalent smoking still is over there.
As a non-smoker, the number of restaurants or cafes I could go to without getting sick was diminished by about 90%.
Any vacation spot with a lot of Russians, like Cuba. Nobody wants to tell a drunk Russian to put out their cigarette indoors, and smoking is allowed in open spaces (even covered spaces like open lobbies)
Rome. Igneous rock is very porous, and everything ancient is made of it. Decades after smoking is banned there, the stonework will still be leaking the fumes out of its pores. The smoke was inescapable when I toured 15 years ago despite it being banned in indoor public places, and it will be inescapable 15 years from now.
Nobody wants to tell a drunk Russian to put out their cigarette indoors
As someone living in Russia, the danger is overestimated. The problem is mainly with them not understanding you. Possibly accidentally starting a fire when fulfilling your request.
For the purpose of this branch of conversation - yeah.
I'd really like to find something like Voinarovsky test, only in English. It's a humorous way to test one's ability to reason. Only the first time counts naturally, sane person's result would be 26/30 minimum, it's not hard. I think most of commenters here would struggle to reach 15/30.
So I literally just touched down on a flight from Tokyo (haven’t gotten off the plane yet) and actually not really. They’re more like America in the 00s. A ton of smokers and everywhere has to say you can’t smoke there, but you can’t smoke anywhere anymore. It’s definitely weird that they have to say no smoking on the Shinkansen, but it doesn’t smell like smoke
Oh was the city I spent most of my trip in that was a multi hour Shinkansen ride from Tokyo also an exception and not the rule? Because I spent three days in a factory there and dealing with Japanese engineers and factory workers and it’s the way I describe. Maybe Osaka or Kyoto are different but they’re closer to where I was than Tokyo is. For all I know Hokkaido is a perpetual cloud of cigarette smoke. But I hit up two factories in two cities that aren’t Tokyo and my experience holds. Tokyo is just where my airport was.
Guys, found us another white knight weeaboo who will raise to any occasion to use his two week guided tour through Japan as a shield against even the slightest mention of something that isn't perfect in his utopia, Japan.
Sure you got me. I’m an absolute weeb and white knight who took a vacation and was excited to get into an argument about it. Definitely not someone who was there on business and actually pretty excited to see much less smoking than I’d expected and was honestly just happy to get her first out of country experience even if she had to spend the majority of the time working and didn’t get to really see anything because the factories are in bumfuck nowhere.
I will admit, I was guided by an engineer I work with who happens to be from there. You see I never bothered to learn Japanese because I don’t really have a reason to learn except for business. That’s a guided tour right? Business meetings, factory tours, going out to dinner where my coworkers and business contacts suggested, and occasionally wandering around near the hotels?
Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m just avidly defending a country that I’m appalled by a lot of their actions including in present day because some people really love their media. Or I just thought you were wrong, was met with hostility and jackassery, and presented my arguments for why I think this country may be experiencing a cultural shift.
You on the other hand, should go take up chain smoking