Chinese Women Confront Smokers, Post Videos Online

Hilda Wang scolds smokers and posts videos of the encounters. She says she's a natural introvert –- but she gets so upset about smoking that her personality has changed. In a widely shared clip, she's lecturing a man with a cigarette in hand. He says she has no right to put him on video. She tells the man he's an embarrassment, and he walks away.

Wang comes into contact with a lot of smokers. She lives in China, a hard-smoking nation, and smoking habits tend to fall along a gender divide. According to the latest data from the World Health Organization, about 45% of males and 2% of females above the age of 15 smoke tobacco.

In Shenzhen, a densely-packed city of almost 20 million residents just north of Hong Kong, Wang is one of many women who have been confronting men smoking in public areas. Sometimes the confrontations end up on social media.

"I hate bros," says Hilda's friend Luno Wang, who also scolds men she sees smoking. She says "bros" are lower IQ and less civilized, and don't respect others. She says she's asked men: "Is your cigarette a good thing for you to suck?"

In a clip that spread on social media this spring, a woman confronted a smoker at a bus stop. When he refused to put out his cigarette, she poured juice on it. He threw the empty cup at her, and both were arrested. The woman posted afterward on China's social media Weibo that she was strip-searched by police; her posts were later taken down. The state-owned China Daily said a female officer gave her a "safety check" in accordance with regulations. China Daily also reported that the man was breaking Shenzhen's rules for no smoking at bus stops and he was fined.

The anti-smoking brigade has a lot of confrontations ahead of it.

"I love smoking," says Tan Tia-shan, a restaurant kitchen worker who's been doing it since he was a pilot in the army 40 years ago. "It's refreshing." Tan says he has a cough, but he's otherwise fine. Men traditionally had the pleasure of smoking because men were in charge, he explains.

He doesn't mind the anti-smoking activists. The women who are confronting smokers on social media are doing a good thing, he says.

Other men who spoke with NPR in Shenzhen agree. They say they wouldn't mind a lecture if it helps them overcome their addiction.

The audio version of this story was produced by Taylor Haney.