校园“烟雾弥漫”（一）
Smoking may be too 'cool' for health activists to stop in school

TOKYO -- Asking young women in one of Tokyo's leading women's universities why they smoke was a revelation. A liberated woman smokes. Why not, men do it. Smoking is cool, modern, makes a fashion statement.
"I want a boyfriend who smokes," said one 18-year-old. "I think a man who smokes is independent and strong, someone who makes up his own mind. I'd be attracted to someone like that."

*revelation：“reveal”（揭露）的名词形式，有“显示、揭示”等含意，这里指（惊人的）新发现。比如：The ease with which he drives was quite a revelation to me.（他开车如此娴熟自如，这可大出我的意料。）

A professor from the women's studies department pointed out that women in Asia, often the urban educated, smoked to prove that they were equal to men, to combat traditional views of femininity. Smoking is a sign of the equality of the sexes, she said -- a view that the tobacco industry has actively fostered through its advertising.

*femininity：“女性特质、柔弱性”，是由feminie(女性)而来。在传统观念中，女性，尤其是东方女性被认为是柔弱的象征，有专家认为她们吸烟就是为了向传统观念挑战。
*foster：助长，培养。比如：The mother tried to foster her son's interest in music by taking him to concerts.（妈妈带儿子去音乐会，以培养他对音乐的兴趣。）

As smoking levels decline in developed countries, tobacco activists say that women and youth, and developing countries, are the latest frontier for the tobacco industry. Between 1990 and 1995, cigarette sales fell by about five percent in North America but increased by eight percent in the Asia Pacific region. Smoking levels among women and youth in Asia are rising slowly but surely. In 1996, smoking prevalence among Japanese women in their twenties increased, in one decade, from 16 percent to 20 percent. Smoking among teenage girls rose from 5 percent in 1990 to 15 percent in 1996, while it rose from 26 percent to 40 percent among adolescent males, according to researchers. It is estimated that overall sales in Asia will increase by 35 percent by the year 2000.

*prevalence：流行，盛行。比如：the prevalence of rumors（谣言的盛传）。文中说，1996年，在日本20年龄段的女性中，吸烟人数增加了四个百分点。
*adolescent：青春期的、青少年的。

If activists and policy-makers hope to make a dent in the smoking prevalence among these groups, they will have to creatively combat these images and ideas that accompany smoking. Merely saying smoking is bad may not work for groups who see such attitudes as conservative or coercive attempts to control behavior. Gender sensitive and age-sensitive programs will have to be developed to target specific groups, say activists.

*dent：本义是“凹痕”，这里是个词组“make a dent in”，意思是“迈出第一步，动手”，属非正式用法。比如当时间已晚，而你还有工作尚未着手时，可以说：It's already 6 o'clock, but I haven't made a dent in this pile of work!
*conservative：保守的、守旧的。文中指出，光说吸烟有害，对那些认为这是保守和强制（coercive意思是“强制的”）做法的一族来说，是没有效的。

(to be continued)