Like a pediatrician rounding on cystic fibrosis children in the hospital and smoking at their bedside. That's what the early 1980s were like.

Was in Tokyo and Osaka last year.

Tokyo was gorgeous. No smokers in sight at most locations. Some vapers, but whatever.

Osaka was the complete opposite. I had to find outdoor restaurants. The gaming bar I hung out had a smoking corner near the bathroom. Lots of cigarette butts all over the city.

Also:

Any vacation spot with a lot of Russians, like Cuba. Nobody wants to tell a drunk Russian to put out their cigarette indoors, and smoking is allowed in open spaces (even covered spaces like open lobbies)
Rome. Igneous rock is very porous, and everything ancient is made of it. Decades after smoking is banned there, the stonework will still be leaking the fumes out of its pores. The smoke was inescapable when I toured 15 years ago despite it being banned in indoor public places, and it will be inescapable 15 years from now.

Nobody wants to tell a drunk Russian to put out their cigarette indoors

As someone living in Russia, the danger is overestimated. The problem is mainly with them not understanding you. Possibly accidentally starting a fire when fulfilling your request.
- That's probably true. Every drunk non-smoking russian I've met was just happy to make a new friend.
- Dude, you don't get it. Nobody wants to hear from Russia anymore.
  
  Wow.
  
  Dude, Russia still has killed less people than USA in the last 20 years.
  
  Among groups of people nobody wants to hear from anymore yours is higher.
  
  Do you think it's some kind of competition? Do you think that as long as you can find someone else who else did a bad thing yours is suddenly OK?
  
  For the purpose of this branch of conversation - yeah.
  
  I'd really like to find something like Voinarovsky test, only in English. It's a humorous way to test one's ability to reason. Only the first time counts naturally, sane person's result would be 26/30 minimum, it's not hard. I think most of commenters here would struggle to reach 15/30.
  
  I’ve never set foot in the US. So shut up and go get ass-fucked every day in your hellhole soon to be glass joke of a country, Kümmel.
  
  Oh, a German. I see why you are so anxious. Condolences.

So I literally just touched down on a flight from Tokyo (haven’t gotten off the plane yet) and actually not really. They’re more like America in the 00s. A ton of smokers and everywhere has to say you can’t smoke there, but you can’t smoke anywhere anymore. It’s definitely weird that they have to say no smoking on the Shinkansen, but it doesn’t smell like smoke

Tokyo is the exception not the rule. Go anywhere else and you'll start seeing a lot more smokers.
- Oh was the city I spent most of my trip in that was a multi hour Shinkansen ride from Tokyo also an exception and not the rule? Because I spent three days in a factory there and dealing with Japanese engineers and factory workers and it’s the way I describe. Maybe Osaka or Kyoto are different but they’re closer to where I was than Tokyo is. For all I know Hokkaido is a perpetual cloud of cigarette smoke. But I hit up two factories in two cities that aren’t Tokyo and my experience holds. Tokyo is just where my airport was.
  
  Yes. That's like saying everyone in America acts like New Yorkers.
  
  Ok but if I drove to and spent time in by Albany and Milwaukee after flying into NYC and found that there seemed to be major social changes that had happened that notably had happened in other places first I think I’d be reasonable in telling people that America seems like it might’ve undergone some cultural shifts or at least it appears to be in the process of it.
  
  So yeah believe me or don’t. Maybe I hit relatively low smoking areas. I know executives in Japan at least in my company are still stereotyped as absolute chimneys. But when I was in three cities in Japan over the past week I didn’t see or smell much tobacco use at least not a huge amount more than in America. The country certainly couldn’t be compared to America over 20 years ago, I remember by eyes burning from the smoke at restaurants back then and my lungs are terrible these days.
  
  So to stick with factual statements: in the three cities I was in I witnessed not many people actually smoking, enough “no smoking” signs and announcements to find it notable, a couple of cigarette vending machines, two smoking floors in one hotel to 5 non smoking (no other hotel specified in the elevator, but none of my rooms smelled of smoke), no indoor smoking sections in any restaurant or public transit I took, and none of the people I spent days collaborating with took smoke breaks. And I don’t recall seeing anyone smoking while waiting for a train. I hypothesize that Japan has recently moved towards the anti smoking reforms that were effective in other countries, but I may have just been in the wrong places to see it or missed it. I’m just some lady on the internet, for all you know I’m lying.
  
  Guys, found us another white knight weeaboo who will raise to any occasion to use his two week guided tour through Japan as a shield against even the slightest mention of something that isn't perfect in his utopia, Japan.
  
  Fuck off loser
  
  Sure you got me. I’m an absolute weeb and white knight who took a vacation and was excited to get into an argument about it. Definitely not someone who was there on business and actually pretty excited to see much less smoking than I’d expected and was honestly just happy to get her first out of country experience even if she had to spend the majority of the time working and didn’t get to really see anything because the factories are in bumfuck nowhere.
  
  I will admit, I was guided by an engineer I work with who happens to be from there. You see I never bothered to learn Japanese because I don’t really have a reason to learn except for business. That’s a guided tour right? Business meetings, factory tours, going out to dinner where my coworkers and business contacts suggested, and occasionally wandering around near the hotels?
  
  Maybe you’re right. Maybe I’m just avidly defending a country that I’m appalled by a lot of their actions including in present day because some people really love their media. Or I just thought you were wrong, was met with hostility and jackassery, and presented my arguments for why I think this country may be experiencing a cultural shift.
  
  You on the other hand, should go take up chain smoking
Check out my comment! Tokyo is really different. When you visit Shibuya or Shinjuku, you'll start to see more smokers. Kabukichō district is also where you'll find smokers (and other underworld-y stuff)
- Ok I’m not going to say where I was, but you missed the part where Tokyo was a pass through because it’s where Americans fly in and out. I landed and promptly took a series of trains to a small city west of Nagoya. I also spent a day in a factory in a place that could very well be or not be considered Tokyo because I’m not used to megapolises, incidentally though the hotel there is where I saw more smoking than near Nagoya.
Probably you didn't get the full picture because you only went to Maid cafes and the Akihabara child porn stores.
- What is wrong with you?
  
  Bullseye!!

I watch Midnight Diner and they all smoke on there.

I live in Russia, it's better than 10 years ago. But this thread did give me memories.

Wow who let you on here? Guys, I found us one!!! Get the baseball bats!!!
- I didn't say I'm a smoker from Russia.