I Quit Smoking with Stoical Fortitude
“You better quit smoking in the New Year”
Over a half of the villagers who participated a campaign entitled, “Making the town without cigarette smoke” succeeded in quitting smoking. The campaign was ambitiously conducted in Namhae district, Kyung-nam province, and the results were much better than expected.
The district enrolled as a health membership city of the World Health Organization (WHO) in July last year to advance into a healthy city at international standards. Samples of ten villagers in each town were selected, carried out the special business, and 59.3 percent of participants got ahead by stopping smoking.
According to the district, approximately 140 people out of 892 town folks, who were over their twenties, were smokers. This was 15.7 percent, but 83 people are over the old habit, dropping the ratio by 6.4 percent.
Among them, seventeen out of nineteen smokers in Gok-nae village, Namhae town showed over a ninety percent success rate. Moreover, 13 out of 16 people in Yang-hwa-geom village in Sam-dong town, eight out of 13 in Song-nam village, Mijo town and 12 out of 22 in Yeon-gok village, Chang-sun town chose healthier life.
The oldest man of all the quitters was Kim Back-cheon in Gok-nae village. He cut his connection to cigarettes on March 20 and he became a model for others. Kim started smoking when he was 36 years old and had been a smoker for 58 years until he quit smoking. He said, “Everybody comes up to me and asks what would be the point of stopping since I am so old, but it is better not to give a bad impression to other people with bad cigarette smell and smoke, without hurting them at all.”
However, grandmother Gwak (78) who marched into the no-smoking movement in March couldn’t bear her sadness and loneliness after her husband, whom she tended during his sickness for several years by cleaning up after his bodily functions, passed away last July. It was shame and sad to see her back in the old habit.
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 / 입력시간: 2006. 12.30. 13:18
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