Spending half a year in Europe has been a patchwork quilt of unfamiliar obstacles that I have had to bravely overcome. For instance, I have learned to successfully navigate public transportation, converse in various tongues and adapt to diverse eating practices (dinner at 10 anyone?), to name the most obvious examples. The only cultural nuance to which I find it impossible to adapt is the miasma of second-hand smoke that seems to haunt me wherever I go.
Ah, Spain, land of plenty. Plenty of food, fun, culture and, unfortunately, cigarettes. Not to pick on the place – after all, I am more than fond of the country – but Spaniards have a real smoking problem. And despite the more-than-eye-catching warnings printed on all cigarette cartons sold, many Spaniards, like Americans, prefer to overlook the anti-tobacco propaganda and search for a lighter instead.
My trouble with smoking in Spain began this summer in Barcelona, where I knew my neighborhood and its inhabitants quite well. One day, upon entering my nearby metro stop, I was solicited by a woman, barefoot, and in her second trimester, for a spare Euro. Feeling generous and compassionate, I handed over the coin, feeling quite pleased with myself until, 48 hours later, I saw the same woman, still very pregnant, gallivanting down the Ramblas with a lit cigarette in her mouth. An isolated incident, but unsettling nevertheless.
And although this semester I have yet to see any smoking pregnant women, I have certainly received my fair share of second-hand smoke. Many a stroll down the wide boulevards of Madrid has been spoilt by the musky aroma of smoke wafting into my nostrils by an otherwise welcome autumn breeze. At night, around the dinner table, I can’t help but get a headache when the cigarettes are lit, often spoiling a perfectly lovely conversation.
I am by no means suggesting that Spain’s tobacco use is more flagrant or rampant than anywhere else. Possessing no scientific data and fearing what new horrors such information could bring, I relinquish any claim to expertise. I only present the reader with a rather heavy predicament: We all know how dangerous breathing in unfiltered cigarette smoke really is, so why do we relinquish our right to clean air?
As an observer in a foreign land, I am the ultimate pushover. Trying to absorb as much culture as possible, it is difficult, if not imprudent for me to impose my own staunch anti-tobacco values on those who offer me hospitality. But at what point am I sacrificing my own health and security for the sake of a new experience?
Which brings me back to Dallas, where I have often heard complaints from students who feel suffocated by smokers taking a break outside Fondren or Hyer between classes. Do we have a right to demand healthier breathing? Then again, don’t smokers have a right to relax in the same places as everyone else?
For better or for worse, I have never observed anyone brave enough to ask a friend or even a stranger to stop smoking. Is it for fear of bringing offense, or am I the only one holding my breath when I pass a smoldering cigarette? While I’m not sure that I will build up the courage to ask my señora to put out her Virginia Slims anytime soon, I hope that at least back home someone will.
Rebecca Quinn is a junior art history, Spanish, and French triple major. She can be reached for comment at [email protected].
