"In bars, you drink, and with alcohol, you smoke," said Mohamad Kheer Ferekh, 27, from Syria, in a crowded bar in Sanlitun, one of the capital's most popular bar areas.

Ferekh, who works in the video-game industry as business development manager, said he started smoking at 16. He says some of his friends are heavy smokers and smoke more than a pack a day, but he is trying to cut down because he is worried about the health risks. Now he basically smokes only when he goes out for a dinner, drinks coffee, or is stressed.

"I smoke in bars more than I smoke at home," he said.

He knows there are regulations in the capital and elsewhere that are supposed to ban smoking in public places, including in restaurants and bars, but he said a lot of Chinese people, including government officials, often smoke in buildings.

He cited as an example a business trip to Sichuan province, where people were always offering him cigarettes to smoke together indoors.

Once, at the airport in Guilin in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region, there were so many people smoking he said he felt sick.

Being social

Frank Yu, 47, from New York, said he started smoking after he came to China in 2004.

He knows smoking is not good for his health, but he does it to be social.

"In China all my friends smoke, so I started within a year. In the United States, few of my friends smoke," he said, adding he only smokes in bars.

While people in China can smoke almost anywhere, even in restaurants, he said in the US people have to go far from the building to smoke to avoid being fined.

"In China, a lot of people just smoke anywhere, even in places saying you cannot smoke," Yu said. "As long as you don't bother anyone, no one will stop you."

He says when he goes anywhere new he looks for an ashtray. "If I find an ashtray, then I can smoke," he said, noting more people smoke in second- and third-tier cities.

The cost of cigarettes in China also makes it easier to start smoking, he said.

"Here a pack of cigarettes can cost about 10 yuan ($1.63). In the US, the same pack will cost 50 yuan," he said.

Cindy Cooper, a young woman from Australia, said she smokes now and then in China, but never in Australia.

That is because people cannot smoke in bars in Australia; they are forced to smoke outside, she said.

In Beijing's bars, she feels free to smoke and talk with friends, and that is what she likes about smoking.

As for the health risks, she said the smog in Beijing somehow justifies her smoking, instead of giving her incentive to quit smoking.

"I'm already damaging my health in Beijing, why not smoke?" she said.