韩国女子乐团参与军队的禁烟任务

20160804ou 一中两外锵锵三人行 今日话题：韩国pop女子乐团参与军队的禁烟任务 LW: Now, South Korea takes an unusual step to try to cut smoking rates in its military. Nick, take it away. NL: Yes, in South Korea there has been an ongoing problem with high levels of smoking and this has particularly become an issue in the military, where obviously health and fitness are very key, and they are keen to minimize the number who are smoking as much as possible. So they’ve now taken an unusual step which is to stop previous attempts to punish people or preventative measures to stop people from smoking, and instead to accept the fact that people are already smoking and incentivize them to stop. This particular scheme has been to enlist the help of a K-pop girl group called the Lovelyz – with a Z, not just an S. There are 8 singers in the band and they’ve been enlisted as anti-smoking ambassadors to try and influence and persuade the young men of the military that smoking is perhaps not such a good idea after all. LW: So what are we using, are we using the attractiveness of the ladies? Why would they, more than anything, incentivize men to stop smoking in the South Korean military? NL: You pose a valid point, these are attractive women and they hope that by being told to stop smoking by attractive women, they will listen more than if they are just told to stop by their boss. LW: Yoyo? WY: Okay, first of all it’s a very interesting story, but the fact is the military says around 40% of soldiers smoke. Also, according to the OECD, male smoking rates in South Korea are amongst the highest in the developed world. This means the situation is serious and they want to do something about it. You know, in the military, sometimes they are facing a very cruel situation and their only entertainment time can be simply listening to the radio, or monthly or annually having concerts hosted by the military and inviting some beautiful girls to sing and dance for an hour or so. And maybe, if they quit this addiction to smoking, they get to be on TV, so I think it is very motivational. NL: You spoke about the TV aspect there as well, this is another thing which I didn’t introduce before, the girl group are getting their own talk show on the country’s military TV channel and those soldiers who manage to kick the smoking habit will be invited onto the show for an interview and a chat so you get your five minutes of fame as well if you successfully quit smoking.