Countries across the world have begun pasting graphic images on their cigarettes

While graphic photos depicting smoking-related diseases have been proven effective deterrents to smoking, China continues to prefer more artistic cigarette packaging. (Photo: Li Hao/GT)

Kouu Ikou, a 26-year-old Japanese IT worker at a Sino-Japanese enterprise in Tokyo, first came to China six years ago when he was still a university student on an internship. His destination was the bustling city of Guangzhou in Guangdong Province.

As a heavy smoker who had begun sneaking his father's cigarettes as early as primary school, one of the first things he did was go out to buy some cigarettes.

"I remember that I took 100 yuan ($15.42) with me, in case the cigarettes were expensive like in Japan, where you pay around 50 yuan for a pack of middle-grade cigarettes like Mild Seven," Ikou said.

So he was surprised when he found that a pack of Shuangxi (double happiness) cost him less than 10 yuan.

He also noticed something else: "China's cigarette packages are all neat and better designed than those in Japan," Ikou said.

This isn't a matter of sheer aesthetics - in Japan, as in more than 45 countries around the world, cigarette manufacturers are required to include graphic health warnings on their packaging, including photos of rotting teeth, cancerous tumors, people with stomas and even dead bodies.

Ikou also says Japanese cigarettes feature textual warnings regarding the health effects of smoking. "It's like they want you to read an entire scientific paper before you light up," he jokes. "There are eight kinds of warnings in Japan, and some brands print all of them on their packages."

By contrast, Shuangxi - which remains Ikou's favorite Chinese cigarette - offers up auspicious-looking red packaging that wouldn't look out of place at a formal banquet.

"The Chinese character is symmetrical and I know the meaning, which is happily married," said Ikou. "An old cigarette seller told me once if I kept smoking Shuangxi cigarettes, I'd find a girlfriend soon."

Luckily (or unluckily) for smokers of Chinese cigarettes, it doesn't look like graphic warnings will be coming to China anytime soon. During an interview with Beijing newspaper the Legal Mirror at the recently concluded Two Sessions, Duan Tieli, deputy head of the State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA) and a representative of the National People's Congress, affirmed that China has no plans to require such warnings on its cigarette packages.

Duan said photos of smokers' rotten lungs, bad teeth, skulls and dead babies are not "in line with" traditional Chinese cultural values. He also stressed that China has strictly followed the WHO's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) - an international agreement aimed at establishing universal standards for warnings about the dangers of tobacco products - since signing the treaty in 2003.

The cultural significance of smoking

This isn't the first time that China has bumped up against the question of the implications of its cigarette packaging.

According to a March 16 report by the Beijing Youth Daily, during one FCTC conference in 2008, the Chinese representative announced that "the beautiful designs of Chinese landscapes on our cigarette packages are the essence of China's traditional culture and profound history," adding that changing them to such pictures would represent humiliation and disrespect to the Chinese people. As a result, the Chinese government "reserves our views based on our national sentiment and civilization."

According to Han Meiling, a Beijing-based psychologist, smoking has long been an important part of Chinese culture, making its way both into people's daily lives and into special occasions.

"Cigarettes are present on happy occasions like weddings and family reunions," Han says.

"Everyone knows smoking is bad for your health, but without a direct graphic representation of that, the sense of disgust toward smoking is hard to achieve simply through written words."

According to the Legal Mirror report, over 45 countries and regions across the world, including Hong Kong and Taiwan, have followed the WHO's recommendations by requiring that graphic and textual warnings cover at least 30 percent of each pack's packaging, while 20 of those countries and regions have gone further in requiring that at least 50 percent be covered in warnings.

But Chinese cigarette packages only have bland textual warnings that "smoking may be harmful to your health" written on them.

For foreigners like 28-year-old Ashley Nowka, an English teacher and mother of two young children, the lack of obvious warnings on cigarette packages, and general lack of concern regarding the dangers of smoking, are a cause for concern.

"I've already talked to my children about smoking, and I do worry about their future," says Nowka, who was initially dismayed to find that in China, the shops sell cigarettes to everyone regardless of age, even to children. "And also the pretty packages are a lure to curious little ones."