Cigarette Aficionado

"For male Chinese entrepreneurs, the give-and-take of cigarettes represents a kind of semaphore. There are some four hundred Chinese brands, each with a distinct identity and an unspoken exchange rate. Around Beijing, peasants smoke Red Plum Blossoms. Red Pagoda Mountain can be found in the pockets of average city men. Low-level entrepreneurs like Zhongnanhai Lights. A nouveau-riche businessman tosses out Chunghwas as if they were rice. Pandas are the rarest beast of all. That was supposedly Deng Xiaoping's favorite brand, and government quotas make them hard to find."

- Peter Hessler from The New Yorker