A new health initiative has got off to a busy start in Xiamen, a subtropical island off the south east coast of China, directly across from Taiwan. Based at the university of Xiamen, it was born out of discussions I had with students about my work with the BADvertising institute, which I started in the late 1980s in the USA. BADvertising (http://www.badvertising.org/) uses the power of art and humour to try to counter tobacco promotion, and support other tobacco control measures. Having learned about the situation in China and the dire predictions of future Chinese tobacco deaths during the world conference in Beijing in 1997, I had decided to come to teach in China, and to do something to help. Now, having learned about my past experience of control work, the students decided they wanted to do something similar.

First, we conducted several awareness-raising activities about the problems caused by smoking, about which there is still comparatively little knowledge in China; about …