Illustration: Peter C. Espina/GT

In many eyes, smokers are insensitive people who care little about people around them. Are they?

Having smoked for half of my life, my opinion may be biased, but I am convinced that smokers in China are no more evil, immoral or even rude than non-smokers. There is no correlation, let alone causation, between smoking and the character traits of those who smoke.

As a kid, I would hold my breath in a bathroom so as not to inhale the smoke after my dad had just completed his morning routine. Twenty years later my father, who had quit smoking, would not allow me to smoke anywhere in his house.

These days, I tend not to smoke around my kids, and I get easily annoyed when others do. But I learned to understand why they do it. These evil doers, really, really have no idea that it is not healthy.

Last year my wife's cousin and her husband were visiting us in Beijing. When me and the man went out for a beer run, he lit up a cigarette while waiting for the elevator. The elevator came and he hadn't finished smoking yet.

I told him, "Let's take the stairs."  He did not argue, and we walked 20 flights of stairs, but he was utterly surprised. "What, you cannot smoke in the lift?" You can, but you aren't supposed to, I thought. The seed had just not been planted in his head.

Two weeks ago, while travelling through Hebei, I stopped in one of the small towns. As many know, the "no smoking" rules are practically impotent outside of major cities in China. We were in a park, and my wife was breastfeeding our younger child, while our older child was playing around on the monkey bars.

An elderly man who had come with a kid sat next to us and lit up a cigarette as he watched his granddaughter play on the monkey bars with my daughter. The smoke blew towards us. I liked the smell, but I was not sure if the little one enjoyed it as well.

I asked the man, as politely as I could, if he could move a bit further. He responded immediately by apologizing 10 times. Yes, he said, there was a little baby. He put his hands together in front of him, waying apologetically. Then he jumped up and moved away.

Ten seconds later he was blowing smoke at his own granddaughter and at my older kid. Another 10 seconds later he caught my evil eye, put a cigarette out with his finger tips and apologized another eight times.

He did not seem like a bad person. Quite the opposite.

Smokers in China might be ignorant, but they are definitely not immoral. This was not the first time I asked somebody not to smoke around my kids, and my requests have never been ignored. I, myself, always walk away from a crowd of non-smokers whenever I want to have a fag.

For those who think that smokers are on a mission to harm you or your precious ones, don't be judgmental, but don't be sheepish. Ask them to move. I guarantee they would.