A visionary artist's campaign
By Daisy & Enid
Photos by Zheng Xiaodong

自1988年第一个"世界无烟日"确立以来, 今年的"世界无烟日"已经进入第十八个年头了. 十八年来, 这个反对吸烟、倡导健康的队伍正在不断壮大. 目前住在鼓浪屿上的美国人Bonnie Viethaler就是这群人中的先锋. 在今年的5月31日"世界无烟日"来临之际, 记者走进了鼓浪屿上幽静的别墅, 拜访了这位生活在我们周围的来自异国的斗士. World No Tobacco Day, which now falls on May 31st each year, started in 1988 to draw the public's attention to the harms caused by smoking. Many people since then have devoted themselves to the battle against smoking. Bonnie Vierthaler is one of the leaders.

In Bonnie's eye, the general public, especially the younger generations, are fooled by the seemingly attractive and seductive tobacco advertisements. ″People believe what they see. If what they're seeing is seducing them into a deadly addiction, then we need to counter the seduction and reverse what they see. In other words, fight fire with fire, images with images".

The birth of a new idea

In 1985, three years before the first World No Tobacco Day, artist Bonnie Vierthaler, had lunch with a friend in a very smoky restaurant. "We wondered why people continued to smoke when we already knew that it was harmful. We talked about the power of the tobacco ads. We thought ‘Wouldn't it be funny if somebody made the ads honest and pasted diseased lungs on the Marlboro Man' ‘I could do that!'" she exclaimed. Then the Joy of Smoking...A Spoof on Cigarette Advertising was born. It was an art exhibit of 63 altered tobacco ads and she took it to schools, hospitals, libraries, shopping malls, and parks as well as health conferences and medical conventions. She spoke to people about the discrepancy between the ads and what really happens when you smoke.

As a pioneering person, Bonnie is aware of where the world wind blows. She established her BADvertising website to circulate her art works in the virtual world in 1995, when few people barely learned the concept of the Internet.

1987 was the year when Bonnie felt the need to begin studying Chinese.



Chinese destiny

After more than 10 years' persistent battle on the tobacco issues, Bonnie became a well-known figure in the circle. Therefore, she was invited to present her BADvertising work at the 10th World Conference on Tobacco or Health held in Beijing, China in 1997. At this point, her two life streams magically converged. Her first visit to China revealed her hidden passion for the Far-East nation. She discovered her second homeland. She also learned that the smoking problem in China was so severe that, if things didn't change dramatically, in 20 years China would be plagued by a health epidemic of major proportions. She knew she had to do something to help.
Back in America, Bonnie took an intensive Chinese language training course at Cornell University the next year, where she launched a language exchange program with some Cornell University students and scholars. When she told her Chinese friends that she would like to find a peaceful and clean place to live in China, everyone said, "You have to go to Xiamen". Bonnie began teaching in the Economics Department at Xiamen University 6 months later, after wrapping up her new website in America. When asked her reason for coming to China, Bonnie beamed, "It's Yuan fen". In English, it's destiny.

It was indeed because of Yuanfen that Bonnie was here in Xiamen. "The place where I lived in America was Deer Isle. Xiamen's nickname is Egret Island. Therefore, both of these places have the same pronunciation-Ludao-in Chinese".

Campus campaign

Since universities are the home of many innovative ideas, the BADvertising idea was readily embraced. For that reason, Bonnie introduced her ideas into her classes. Undoubtedly, students were delighted with her unique art works and the smoke-free concept. Co-sponsored by the department, the Foreign Languages Society and the campus radio stations, diverse activities were arranged. By delivering a series of consciousness-raising flyers, by hanging a series of posters for changing old beliefs and behaviors, by giving out a series of educational bookmarks in English bearing six different BADvertising images and quotes from Bonnie Vierthaler, the BADvertising activities flourished on campus.

One activity that Bonnie vividly recalled was the Letter Writing Campaign, which was to encourage a loved one to quit smoking. Even now it's been three years after Bonnie's departure from Xiamen University, many students can still freshly recollect the gentle lady - Bonnie Vierthaler and her smoke-free messages. "I was one of the writers in the letter writing campaign. I wrote a letter to my dad, telling him how poisonous it is to smoke and how tobacco harms second-hand smokers. The letter shocked my dad and he still keeps it," reminisced one of Bonnie's students at Xiamen University. "Bonnie's works are powerful. I assimilated her idea the moment I saw the art works. I am her fan," another student from Xiamen University proudly commented.



An iron-willed heroine

Unfortunately, when Bonnie went back to the US that summer, she was diagnosed with a late stage of tongue cancer and she stayed on for treatment. She conquered the cancer and one year later, the iron-willed fighter returned to her second home with her anti-tobacco concept and optimistically relocated her work to Gulangyu. "You either do what you enjoy or enjoy what you do. If you don't make life interesting, you'll be bored; you'll be boring," smiled Bonnie like an angel.

More warm-hearted, concerned young people have dedicated themselves to the BADvertising battle to save China from a terrible epidemic. Assisted by these people, and experts from the Xiamen Municipal Government's Communications Department, the Chinese version of Bonnie's BADvertising website is now under construction.

Because in China and around the world, most of the smokers are poor and uneducated, she feels a need to reach beyond the Web. The BADvertising group is currently working on an idea for broadcasting the BADvertising images and ideas to a mass audience by utilizing the latest technology, namely, the mobile phone text message, some online instant messaging services and chatrooms, as well as e-mail. "We'll send a message, maybe once a week, and ask people to pass it on to everyone they know. We're looking for people who are good at Photoshop and Flash." If any of you are interested in the BADvertising activities, please pay a visit to Bonnie's BADvertising website at http://www.badvertising.org and send her an e-mail or come to the Common Talk English Corner this Friday evening to meet this visionary artist.

Vocabulary
spoof 哄骗
discrepancy 差异
seductive 诱人的
converge 聚合
destiny 缘分
smoke-free 无烟的
diagnose 诊断