@HFCampo: no, it wasn`t.

If a habit is not a cultural practice, what is it?

@Dazzer: I agree, not your job to teach `them`, but somehow `the `they` in `they gotta change` presumes something...

@Spartans: Sorry people smoke in restaurants in China where they`re not supposed to, but you react way, way over the line - wars have been started for less. Why not just call in the Marines and be done with it?

@Geezer, my thoughts exactly.

Learning is changing. Does not matter where we learn from or who we learn from.

or if that learning is rammed down our throats? its not what we learn its the way that we learned it. if we wanna learn we will. if peolpe get our backs up we won;t. i bet a lot of people leaned some manners from tv, even american tv. i bet if a japanese tried to teach a chinese something there would be a fight, and the behaviour would continue as almost a badge of pride (passive aggressive). a bit like you tell you chef how to cook and he then spits in the porridge.

Culture, tradition, habits: different vocabulary different meanings.

Habits are commonly understood to be personal.

Habits are personal - like spitting in public, belching in public, pissing and completely missing the urinal, lighting a cigarrete before you pull your pants down to take a crap, picking your nose and scratching your brain through your nostrils, pushing others so you can get a seat on a bus, smoking in public spaces and not giving a hoot who you may offend.

If a couple of hundred million people have the same habit, that's culture. If that culture keeps on for 20 years, then that's tradition. Feel free to substitute any numbers that pop in your head. What's all this about again?

@AlexKMG - by that logic smaller nations have no culture (as they don't have the required numbers/population). also, anything commonly done by the Chinese or Russians for example would become 'cultural'. the idea just doesn't seem to make sense to me. Even if we change the numbers wouldn't it make witch hunts or the slave trade cultural and thereby acceptable?

back to the topic, how can anyone defend smoking in a non-smoking place? it's just rude and inconsiderate in any culture. FGM is practised in some places but even if we accept that it's cultural it doesn't make it 'right' or even acceptable. likewise, 'honour killing'.

smoking bans, taxes, advertising restrictions and education affect number of smokers. these have more to do with govt policies than 'culture'.