Posted by CP on 6/18/2001, 9:31 am And there's the teacher/student barrier here, as you mentioned. A lot of them know that smoking is kind of stigmatized in the West; in fact the image may be even worse than reality. Nonsmoking restrictions in America are famous here in Japan. Because they know of the differences in culture related to smoking, students don't usually smoke anywhere near their school. At the English school where I worked, in about a year of teaching there and a couple of parties at bars (actually izakayas for those familiar with that Japanese word), I only saw a pack of cigarettes once on top of someone's purse at school and only saw two women smoke at parties. (One was a mid-30s single-for-life type who looked very non-smokerish but then lit up a Caster (a terrible smelling Japanese cigarette) and proceeded to blow smoke into the face of the lady sitting next to me all night, the manager of the school.) Actually PH, if you smoked with her even once or twice at a bar, she would probably feel much better about smoking in front of you. You might want to ask her out for drinks (making the point that it is just as friends if you like), taking her to small bar and lighint up yourself. Say that you only smoke once in a while and you don't really smoke much in public or some such. And you can probably count on seeing her at that coffee shop again, unless she realizes that you go there often yourself and she thinks she has to find another hiding place. So at the least, perhaps next time you see her there you should make a point of sitting next to her, right away pointing out her ashtray and saying something like "You know, I don't smoke but I also don't mind if other people do. Maybe you have an image that all non-smoking Brits are anti-smoking, but it's not really true." Well, just trying to think of ways "out of this" for you. I hope you find a way to solve your dilemma. Keep us posted.
Hey PH, do you happen to remember a message I posted about two years ago in which I saw a former student smoking (also early to mid-20s) and decided not to say anything to her for fear of not getting a chance to see her smoke? It was a dilemma (I even titled the post as such), and I asked others what they would have done. You said something like, "CP, of course you should have talked to her you big fool". Well, now that you've been here a while, I guess you realize that there's a lot of things involved in the decision. Especially in the big cities, ladies who smoke can disappear into the woodwork fairly easily when they want to smoke. And I think some of them get used to that. And some of them kind of lead two existences (similar to the two lives many of us on this board live?) One is a smoking existence, which they like to keep private, and the other is a non-smoking existence. Remember I said this is just true for some female smokers here. There are some ladies who smoke whereever and in front of whomever they damned well please. I like both types of smokers.
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