End cigar gifts' cultural chokehold

For millions of Chinese people, Spring Festival presents are the stuff of memories, mere ashes.

The penchant for gifting loved ones, friends and business associates with cigarettes was highlighted in a survey, ahead of the holiday, of 1,200 people by the Jiangsu provincial center for disease control and prevention. It found more than half of the people it contacted had planned to buy cigarettes as presents, even as a higher percentage acknowledged the health risks of smoking.

One woman told China Daily writer Shan Juan that she usually buys her chain-smoking father two cartons of premium smokes for the holiday., even as she asks him to cut down.