CRI听力:WHO's Tobacco Control Video Competition

This is from one of the entries submitted to the WHO China office's 2014 Tobacco Control Video Competition. From November to December last year, students from Peking University and Duke University submitted original videos, centering on the theme "Smoke free -- a fashionable way to live your life".

Dr. Angela Pratt, head of the Tobacco Free Initiative at WHO's China office is happy with the students' creativity shown in the more-than two dozen videos.

"A lot of them have come up with things about smoking is not trendy, it's uncool, but lots of other quirky and creative ideas as well, (eg.) Smoking means you won't be able to get a girlfriend, because the girls will find you unattractive if you smoke because your breath stinks."

The winning entry is an animated video called "Smoke free, barrier free". It depicts a bus stop where people around a smoker put on protective bubbles to avoid the smoke.

"And so he put out the cigarette, and then the bubble become a big cloud, and show a colorful world."

Zhang Hao from the winning team explains the message they try to convey.

"So we want to tell others, if everyone can quit smoke(ing), and environment will be better, and other people will be close to you."

In order to combat tobacco, the Chinese government has enacted a series of laws and regulations in the past few years, but the measures have often been dismissed as unenforceable. However, the Representative of the WHO in China, Dr. Bernhard Schwartlander, says China has been improving the effectiveness of its anti-smoking rules.

He highly appreciates the new law that bans smoking in public places.

"I think the new law is actually much better in particular not only as they are much more strict in describing which places would fall under these law, but also that they are much more clear (about) what happens if people don't adhere to that. A very specific example is that there have been regulations already that say that you shouldn't smoke in a restaurant, however there was no clarity at all whatsoever what happens if somebody actually breaches and does smoke in a restaurant, the new law, and that's a good example, is very clear in that the owner of the establishment, of the restaurant, is responsible for making sure that nobody smokes in his or her restaurant."

Apart from the ban on smoking in public places, China is also considering tough curbs on tobacco advertising.

For CRI, this is Zhou Jingnan.