Quí vị không phải là người duy nhất bị khói thuốc lá làm hại

Back in the good ol days, I remember seeing this phrase on a billboard (or something like that) and writing it while sitting at a stop light, and then that night cracking open the Viet-English dictionary to figure out what in the world it meant. Now I joke with the guys about it, back then when every idiom or saying in Vietnamese was a secret code waiting to be pored over and cracked. I guess it means something like "You are not the only one at risk of cigarette smoke" or somewhere in that ball park. I read another one the other day, again on a billboard: "Nếu quí vị hút thuốc, khả năng con cái bị nghiện thuốc sẽ nhân đôi." It's funny because now that I've studied the language for several years, I guess I think I'm pro or something because instead of trying to figure out the meaning, I just nitpick the translation. This phrase means something like "If you smoke, the chances that your children will be addicted are doubled." The word "chances" in this context really evade a good translation in Vietnamese (I think) because most terms of like meaning (cơ hội, cơ may) are in regard to good luck or opportunity, like the chance to win the lotto or the chance to meet a celebrity. The word used in this particular translation is khả năng which could mean something close to chance (more like potential) but could also mean ability. "If you smoke, the ability of your children to be addicted will be doubled" doesn't really fit their meaning, as I see it, but it might be the best bet for lack of a more direct translation. Ahh, translating... the more I do it, the more I feel I lack.

The reason I thought of this today was because I woke up to my neighbor coughing. (Note: "Neighbor" in my neighborhood means any one of the 5 households adjacent to mine, so all the sounds from the other units reverberate and amplify through the walls into ours, and vice versa) He's a big-time smoker and he lives right under us so we're constantly opening our windows and doors when it's hot or when we're cooking with nước mắm, then closing them again when the smoke drifts in. I would be upset about it except that I feel so bad - every morning he coughs for a full 5 minutes before his lungs calm down. Not the little coughs, but the kind of cough that I thought was the furnace hiccuping for the first few months I lived here. It was especially bad this morning, he went on for a good 15 minutes or more. I said a little prayer for him (after which he stopped immediately :) and wondered, as I often do, if he could have possibly imagined what his life is like now when he smoked his first cig. That's why I can't bring myself to mumble under my breath when he's filling our porch and doors and windows with smoke, because I'm sure that under a little peer pressure or depression or desperation or whatever drives someone to fill their lungs with soot, he thought that smoking was something he needed at the time, or at least wanted. It makes me wonder about what I'm doing right now that I think I need or want, and what will the consequences be in 25 or 50 years. Ultimately, I should be thankful for my condo above a smoking neighbor because of the lessons I learn from him. But it is difficult on those hot summer nights when I can't breath for the heat and I can't open the windows and doors because then I might be able to breath better but I'd be sucking someone's second-hand smoke.