No Smoking (except for here, there and, um, everywhere)

When I first heard about the smoking ban in Beijing, I thought “Wow, fantastic. Beijing finally joins New York, London, Dublin, L.A. and Chicago.” They’re leaving the French behind as the last bunch of a-holes insisting on the right to smoke in people’s faces. Finally, I can go into a restaurant and not have to slurp down a pack of charcoal-filtered Honghe’s while eating my Xinjiang-style duan mian. And then I read this nugget.

Basically, restuarants (and, I’m sure, coffee shops and any other place that serves food) are exempt from the rule. “It’s just part of the culture” informs certified genius Zhang Peili, one of the Beijing municipal government officials involved in rolling out the rule. So is spitting. So is littering. So is getting loaded on erguotou at lunch. That is why the government bans these things. So that they are not part of the culture.