
RXinw:
so long as smoking remains main part of Thai and Chinese culture.
There's a big ingredient to this which is missing from your discussion: the huge smoking gender gap in East Asia.
For example: "While Indonesia and China ... are among the countries with the highest prevalence of tobacco smoking among the male population at 73 percent and 44 percent, respectively, the smoking rate among women in both countries is among the lowest in the world at 1.8 and 1.4 percent." (Source: Statista.com, "Asia's Astonishing Gender Gap in Smoking Rates", May 20, 2025)
Let that sink in! While the gender gap in these two countries is particularly extreme, it's similar throughout East Asia, including Thailand.
Thus, smoking is seen as very much a male/macho thing and un-ladylike - and likewise in BL, one could extend this to cultural perceptions of what is seme and what is uke.
In Western countries, in contrast, smoking these days isn't associated with gender, and in quite a few Western countries, the smoking rate among women is higher.

Indie Art Girl:
Same with drinking/drunkenness. It's waaay overdone and overrated. I swear if some of us were to drink as many bottles on the table as I can count, we'd be dead!
Absolutely. Also disgusting and a major turn-off - and I find Korea's toxic culture of forced drinking particularly disturbing.
Thankfully, this has been dramatically declining in Japan (per good article in South China Post: "Nearly 44 per cent of Japanese in their twenties never drink alcohol."