Shanghaiist recently linked to an interesting article on Slate.com titled China's Marlboro Country: The strange underground world of counterfeit cigarettes.

The article is well worth a read. And if you are a smoker in China, at some point you will encounter fake smokes. Often you can tell by the taste, but not always. Either way, smoking is bad enough on its own, but you definitely do not want to be smoking fake smokes...here is why:

YUNXIAO, China—On first approach, Yunxiao seems like any other Chinese backwater caught in an uneasy industrial transition. Faded advertisements line the downtown streets, where motorcyclists wearing bamboo-frond hats vie for paying passengers in a riot of honking. A cheerful red banner in the city center exhorts citizens to develop the local economy. The message seems ironic. After all, since the 1990s, Yunxiao has sprouted its own league of millionaires, famous throughout China. Continue reading...