{"id":2308,"date":"2026-05-21T15:39:38","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T15:39:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usglobalnews.com\/2026\/05\/21\/smokers-in-china-are-being-chided-by-anti-smoking-women\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T15:39:38","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T15:39:38","slug":"smokers-in-china-are-being-chided-by-anti-smoking-women","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.usglobalnews.com\/?p=2308","title":{"rendered":"Smokers in China are being chided by anti-smoking women"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"slug-wrap\">\n<h3 class=\"slug\">\n        <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/global-health\/\">Global Health<\/a><br \/>\n    <\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"storytitle\">\n<h1>Smokers in China are being chided by anti-smoking women<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- END CLASS=\"STORYTITLE\" --><\/p>\n<div id=\"story-meta\" class=\"story-meta has-byline\">\n<div class=\"story-meta__one\">\n<div class=\"story-meta__one-inner\">\n<div class=\"dateblock\">\n    <time datetime=\"2026-05-21T11:13:47-04:00\"><br \/>\n            <span class=\"date\">May 21, 2026<\/span><span class=\"time\">11:13 AM ET<\/span><br \/>\n    <\/time>\n<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><!-- END CLASS=\"STORY-META__ONE-INNER\" -->\n   <\/div>\n<p><!-- END CLASS=\"STORY-META__ONE\" --><\/p>\n<div class=\"story-meta__two\">\n<div id=\"storybyline\" class=\"storybyline-wrap linkLocation\">\n<div class=\"bucketwrap byline\">\n<div class=\"byline-container--block byline-container--block-nophoto\">\n<p class=\"byline__name--block\">By\u00a0<\/p>\n<div class=\"byline byline--block byline--has-link\" aria-label=\"Byline\">\n<div class=\"byline__photo\">\n      <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/people\/4080709\/steve-inskeep\" rel=\"author\"><br \/>\n        <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.npr.org\/assets\/img\/2019\/06\/13\/npr_66397756_sq-fd137fb304f4b517d6179bf326c64217267a1136.jpg?s=100&amp;c=85&amp;f=jpeg\" class=\"img\" alt=\"Steve Inskeep, photographed for NPR, 13 May 2019, in Washington DC.\" data-template=\"https:\/\/media.npr.org\/assets\/img\/2019\/06\/13\/npr_66397756_sq-fd137fb304f4b517d6179bf326c64217267a1136.jpg?s={width}&amp;c={quality}&amp;f={format}\" data-format=\"jpeg\"><br \/>\n      <\/a>\n    <\/div>\n<p class=\"byline__name byline__name--block\">\n      <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/people\/4080709\/steve-inskeep\" rel=\"author\"><br \/>\n      Steve Inskeep<br \/>\n    <\/a>\n  <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"byline__name--block byline__comma\">,\u00a0<\/p>\n<div class=\"byline byline--block byline--has-link\" aria-label=\"Byline\">\n<p class=\"byline__name byline__name--block\">\n      <a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/people\/g-s1-35940\/andrea-muraskin\" rel=\"author\"><br \/>\n      Andrea Muraskin<br \/>\n    <\/a>\n  <\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><!-- END CLASS=\"BUCKETWRAP BYLINE\" -->\n      <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><!-- END CLASS=\"STORY-META__TWO\" -->\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- END ID=\"STORY-META\" CLASS=\"STORY-META HAS-BYLINE\" --><\/p>\n<div id=\"headlineaudio\" class=\"storylocation linkLocation\">\n<article id=\"resnx-s1-9769879\" class=\"bucketwrap resaudio\" aria-label=\"audio-module\">\n<div class=\"audio-module\">\n<h4 class=\"audio-module-title\">These women are trying to change Chinese smoking culture <\/h4>\n<div class=\"audio-module-controls-wrap\" data-audio='{\"uid\":\"g-s1-122873:nx-s1-9769879\",\"available\":true,\"duration\":229,\"title\":\"These women are trying to change Chinese smoking culture \",\"audioUrl\":\"https:\/\/ondemand.npr.org\/anon.npr-mp3\/npr\/me\/2026\/05\/20260514_me_these_women_are_trying_to_change_chinese_smoking_culture.mp3?d=229&amp;size=3678085&amp;sc=siteplayer\",\"storyUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/2026\/05\/21\/g-s1-122873\/smoking-cigarettes-china\",\"slug\":\"global health\",\"program\":\"\",\"affiliation\":\"\",\"song\":\"\",\"artist\":\"\",\"album\":\"\",\"track\":0,\"type\":\"segment\",\"subtype\":\"other\",\"skipSponsorship\":false,\"hasAdsWizz\":false,\"isStreamAudioType\":false,\"podcastEpisodeRawType\":\"\",\"podcastEpisodeDerivedPlusType\":\"\"}' data-audio-metrics=\"[]\">\n<div class=\"audio-module-controls audio-module-controls--no-js\">\n            <a class=\"audio-module-listen\" href=\"https:\/\/ondemand.npr.org\/anon.npr-mp3\/npr\/me\/2026\/05\/20260514_me_these_women_are_trying_to_change_chinese_smoking_culture.mp3?d=229&amp;size=3678085&amp;sc=siteplayer&amp;aw_0_1st.playerid=siteplayer\"><br \/>\n                <b class=\"audio-module-listen-inner\"><br \/>\n                    <b class=\"audio-module-listen-text\"><br \/>\n                        <b class=\"audio-module-cta\"><br \/>\n                            Listen<br \/>\n                        <\/b><br \/>\n                        <b class=\"audio-module-listen-duration\"><br \/>\n                            <span>\u00b7 <\/span><br \/>\n                            <span>3:49<\/span><br \/>\n                        <\/b><br \/>\n                    <\/b><br \/>\n                <\/b><br \/>\n            <\/a><br \/>\n                <time class=\"audio-module-duration\" datetime=\"P3M,49S\"><br \/>\n                  <span class=\"audio-module-duration__initial-value\">3:49<\/span><br \/>\n                <\/time>\n        <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"audio-module-tools\">\n        <button class=\"audio-module-tools-toggle\" data-metrics-ga4='{\"category\":\"audio\",\"action\":\"audio_open_more_options\",\"storyId\":\"g-s1-122873\",\"mediaId\":\"nx-s1-9769879\",\"title\":\"Smokers in China are being chided by anti-smoking women\",\"type\":\"ondemand\"}'><br \/>\n            <b class=\"label\">Toggle more options<\/b><br \/>\n        <\/button><\/p>\n<ul class=\"audio-module-more-tools\">\n<li class=\"audio-tool audio-tool-download\"><a href=\"https:\/\/ondemand.npr.org\/anon.npr-mp3\/npr\/me\/2026\/05\/20260514_me_these_women_are_trying_to_change_chinese_smoking_culture.mp3?d=229&amp;size=3678085&amp;sc=siteplayer&amp;aw_0_1st.playerid=siteplayer\" data-metrics-ga4='{\"category\":\"audio\",\"action\":\"audio_download\",\"storyId\":\"g-s1-122873\",\"mediaId\":\"nx-s1-9769879\",\"title\":\"Smokers in China are being chided by anti-smoking women\",\"type\":\"ondemand\"}'><b class=\"audio-tool-label\">Download<\/b><\/a>\n                <\/li>\n<li class=\"audio-tool audio-tool-embed\">\n                    <button data-embed-url=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/player\/embed\/g-s1-122873\/nx-s1-9769879\" data-metrics-ga4='{\"category\":\"audio\",\"action\":\"audio_embed\",\"storyId\":\"g-s1-122873\",\"mediaId\":\"nx-s1-9769879\",\"title\":\"Smokers in China are being chided by anti-smoking women\",\"type\":\"ondemand\"}'><b class=\"button-inner\"><b class=\"audio-tool-label\">Embed<\/b><\/b><\/button><\/p>\n<div class=\"audio-embed-overlay\">\n                        <label class=\"embed-label\"><br \/>\n                            <b class=\"label\">Embed<\/b><\/p>\n<p>                        <\/label><br \/>\n                        <b class=\"embed-url embed-url-touch\"><br \/>\n                            <code><b class=\"punctuation\">&lt;<\/b>iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/player\/embed\/g-s1-122873\/nx-s1-9769879\" width=\"100%\" height=\"290\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" title=\"NPR embedded audio player\"&gt;<\/code><br \/>\n                        <\/b>\n                    <\/div>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"storytext\" class=\"storytext storylocation linkLocation\">\n<div id=\"resg-s1-122918\" class=\"bucketwrap image x-large\">\n<div class=\"imagewrap has-source-dimensions\" data-crop-type=\"\" style=\"--source-width: 4500;--source-height: 2886\">\n<p>            <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/npr.brightspotcdn.com\/dims3\/default\/strip\/false\/crop\/4500x2886+0+0\/resize\/1100\/quality\/50\/format\/jpeg\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F29%2F61%2Fb439389c41948c8915717ec489b2%2Fgettyimages-646508546-2.jpg\" data-template=\"https:\/\/npr.brightspotcdn.com\/dims3\/default\/strip\/false\/crop\/4500x2886+0+0\/resize\/{width}\/quality\/{quality}\/format\/{format}\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F29%2F61%2Fb439389c41948c8915717ec489b2%2Fgettyimages-646508546-2.jpg\" class=\"img\" alt=\"In this photo taken on February 28, 2017, a man grinds out his cigarette in an ashtray at a railway station in Shanghai. Shanghai widened its ban on public smoking March 1 as China's biggest city steps up efforts to stub out the massive health threat despite conflicts of interest with the state-owned tobacco industry.\"><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"credit-caption\">\n<div class=\"caption-wrap\">\n<div class=\"caption\" aria-label=\"Image caption\">\n<p>\n                Despite public smoking bans in a number of Chinese cities, smoking is still a big thing \u2014 mainly among men.<br \/>\n                <b class=\"credit\" aria-label=\"Image credit\"><br \/>\n                    Johannes Eisele\/AFP\/via Getty Images<br \/>\n                <\/b><br \/>\n                <b class=\"hide-caption\"><b>hide caption<\/b><\/b>\n            <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>            <b class=\"toggle-caption\"><b>toggle caption<\/b><\/b>\n    <\/div>\n<p>    <span class=\"credit\" aria-label=\"Image credit\"><br \/>\n        Johannes Eisele\/AFP\/via Getty Images<br \/>\n    <\/span>\n<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Hilda Wang scolds smokers and posts videos of the encounters. She says she&#8217;s a natural introvert \u2013- but she gets so upset about smoking that her personality has changed. In a widely shared clip, she&#8217;s lecturing a man with a cigarette in hand. He says she has no right to put him on video. She tells the man he&#8217;s an embarrassment, and he walks away.<\/p>\n<p>Wang comes into contact with a lot of smokers. She lives in China, a hard-smoking nation, and smoking habits tend to fall along a gender divide. According to the latest <a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.who.int\/media\/docs\/default-source\/country-profiles\/tobacco\/gtrc-2025\/tobacco-2025-chn.pdf?sfvrsn=fbf1710d_3&amp;download=true\" target=\"_blank\"><u>data from the World Health Organization<\/u><\/a>, about 45% of males and 2% of females above the age of 15 smoke tobacco.<\/p>\n<p>In Shenzhen, a densely-packed city of almost 20 million residents just north of Hong Kong, Wang is one of many women who have been confronting men smoking in public areas. Sometimes the confrontations end up on social media.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I hate bros,&#8221; says Hilda&#8217;s friend Luno Wang, who also scolds men she sees smoking. She says &#8220;bros&#8221; are lower IQ and less civilized, and don&#8217;t respect others. She says she&#8217;s asked men: &#8220;Is your cigarette a good thing for you to suck?&#8221;<\/p>\n<div id=\"resg-s1-123070\" class=\"bucketwrap image large\">\n<div class=\"imagewrap has-source-dimensions\" data-crop-type=\"\" style=\"--source-width: 2903;--source-height: 2177\">\n<p>            <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/npr.brightspotcdn.com\/dims3\/default\/strip\/false\/crop\/2903x2177+0+0\/resize\/1100\/quality\/50\/format\/jpeg\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F51%2F67%2Ffbc59afc4bd88c7616ddab02c694%2Fchina-smoking-0774.jpg\" data-template=\"https:\/\/npr.brightspotcdn.com\/dims3\/default\/strip\/false\/crop\/2903x2177+0+0\/resize\/{width}\/quality\/{quality}\/format\/{format}\/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnpr-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F51%2F67%2Ffbc59afc4bd88c7616ddab02c694%2Fchina-smoking-0774.jpg\" class=\"img\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\"><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"credit-caption\">\n<div class=\"caption-wrap\">\n<div class=\"caption\" aria-label=\"Image caption\">\n<p>\n                Luno Wang, left, and Hilda Wang are determined to confront folks smoking in public.<br \/>\n                <b class=\"credit\" aria-label=\"Image credit\"><br \/>\n                    Reena Advani\/NPR<br \/>\n                <\/b><br \/>\n                <b class=\"hide-caption\"><b>hide caption<\/b><\/b>\n            <\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>            <b class=\"toggle-caption\"><b>toggle caption<\/b><\/b>\n    <\/div>\n<p>    <span class=\"credit\" aria-label=\"Image credit\"><br \/>\n        Reena Advani\/NPR<br \/>\n    <\/span>\n<\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p>In a clip that spread on social media this spring, a woman confronted a smoker at a bus stop. When he refused to put out his cigarette, she poured juice on it. He threw the empty cup at her, and both were arrested. The woman posted afterward on China&#8217;s social media Weibo that she was strip-searched by police; her posts were later taken down. The state-owned <em>China Daily<\/em> said a female officer gave her a &#8220;safety check&#8221; in accordance with regulations. <em>China Daily<\/em> also reported that the man was breaking Shenzhen&#8217;s rules for no smoking at bus stops and he was fined.<\/p>\n<p>The anti-smoking brigade has a lot of confrontations ahead of it.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I love smoking,&#8221; says Tan Tia-shan, a restaurant kitchen worker who&#8217;s been doing it since he was a pilot in the army 40 years ago. &#8220;It&#8217;s refreshing.&#8221; Tan says he has a cough, but he&#8217;s otherwise fine. Men traditionally had the pleasure of smoking because men were in charge, he explains.<\/p>\n<p>He doesn&#8217;t mind the anti-smoking activists. The women who are confronting smokers on social media are doing a good thing, he says.<\/p>\n<p>Other men who spoke with NPR in Shenzhen agree. They say they wouldn&#8217;t mind a lecture if it helps them overcome their addiction.<\/p>\n<p><em>The audio version of this story was produced by Taylor Haney.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"tags\">\n<ul>\n<li><a class=\"tag tag--story\" href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/tags\/129305701\/smoking\">smoking<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a class=\"tag tag--story\" href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/tags\/127994355\/china\">China<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<p><!-- END CLASS=\"TAGS\" --><\/p>\n<div class=\"share-tools share-tools--secondary\" aria-label=\"Share tools\">\n<ul>\n<li class=\"share-tools__service share-tools__service--facebook\"><button class=\"fbStoryg-s1-122873\" data-share-facebook='{\"storyId\": \"g-s1-122873\" }' data-metrics-ga4='{\"category\":\"share\",\"action\":\"share\",\"clickName\":\"facebook\"}'><b class=\"share-tools__service-name\">Facebook<\/b><\/button><\/li>\n<li class=\"share-tools__service share-tools__service--flipboard\"><button class=\"storyg-s1-122873\" 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Steve<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":2310,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2308","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.usglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2308","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.usglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.usglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.usglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2308"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.usglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2308\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.usglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2310"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.usglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2308"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.usglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2308"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.usglobalnews.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2308"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}