"I don't smoke, but would you mind if I have one of your cigarettes?"
"Not at all. Actually I don't smoke myself, normally."
The two speakers (I was one of them) were recent visitors to Indonesia. Such exchanges in my experience are not unusual among ex-smokers who travel to south-east Asia, and I almost found myself smoking again after giving up many years ago.
The culture of smoking here is so widespread that it is easy to lapse. A cigarette is more than a smoke. It is an item of currency, an expression of friendliness, a gesture of good intentions, especially in tense situations.
You start by carrying a packet as currency, then the moment comes when it seems important for you to light up as well.
In a country where six out of 10 males above 10 years of age smoke 10 cigarettes a day, it's not just socially acceptable to light up, but almost impolite to refuse.
There are regulations about not smoking in public buildings but even in the glitzy shopping malls in Jakarta, like Plaza Indonesia, the "No Smoking" signs are largely ignored by consumers who consider smoking to be a sign of sophistication and achievement.
Perfumed with the scent of clove-flavoured cigarettes, Indonesia is a minefield of cigarette advertisements, supposedly banned since 1990. In my Jakarta hotel I could read a book by the light from the giant neon Lucky Strike sign outside the window.
Malaysia and Thailand have banned such advertising but big tobacco companies have simply diversified into sidelines such as jeans, and advertise these with the tobacco brand name.
Tobacco in Asia is even considered acceptable as a diplomatic tool. Bangkok sent 100,000 packets of cigarettes to Thai soldiers and people in East Timor last month to "strengthen bilateral ties", despite the protests of the Thai Health Promotion Institute that it would encourage some soldiers to take up the habit because of the tense situation.
South Korea, which ranks world number one in schoolboy smoking (41 per cent compared to 20 per cent in the UK) is to manufacture jointly with North Korea a cigarette named "One Mind", thus associating tobacco with the national goal of unity.
Backed by national anti-smoking campaigns which organise "No Tobacco" days, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has been holding anti-smoking conferences in Asian cities in recent months to call for tighter regulations on smoking and advertising. But the tobacco industry exerts immense power.
When the Indonesian Government issued a regulation last October banning tobacco companies from advertising on television and stipulating that a cigarette must contain no more than 1.5 milligrams of nicotine and 20 milligrams of tar, the Indonesian Association of Indonesian Cigarette Producers launched a successful counter-attack.
Alleging a conspiracy by "certain foreign elements" to undermine the market share of local cigarettes, it demanded that the content for nicotine and tar be raised to double and treble these figures to give small cigarette makers a chance to survive, as clove cigarettes possess a higher nicotine content than regular cigarettes.
It also pointed out that the Indonesian cigarette industry provides jobs for 6.4 million people, including 2.3 million tobacco farmers and 1.9 million clove farmers, and these would be at risk.
President Wahid, whose government faces social unrest and relies on $1.5 billion in duties from cigarette sales, buckled under the pressure and agreed in December to revise the regulation - much to the dismay of the Indonesian Consumers Foundation which had reinforced its case by citing WHO claims that smoking causes 3.5 million deaths worldwide each year.
The WHO estimates that about one-third of the global adult population, or 1.7 billion people, are smokers, with the highest concentrations in developing countries. If current trends persist for the next 30 years, seven million people from developing countries will die every year from smoking-related diseases, according to Ms Judith Mackay, director of the Asian Consultancy on Tobacco Control in Hong Kong.
While smoking is decreasing in the West, trans-national tobacco companies are turning to softer markets in Asia, she warned. Corporations such as Philip Morris, R.J. Reynolds and British-American Tobacco have been expanding rapidly in Asia, with the enthusiastic support of tobacco lobbyists in the US and pro-tobacco legislators such as Republican Senator Mr Jesse Helms. The promotional campaign has been aimed particularly at China, the world's biggest tobacco market with 300 million smokers and a virtual state monopoly on cigarettes.
Things are going to get worse. In November a tobacco industry conference in Hong Kong heard forecasts of a "modest" global growth of 0.2 per cent in tobacco sales over the next three years, in real terms equivalent to a new market the size of Chile every year.
Women are also being targeted. "Only about 7 per cent of Asian women smoke, compared with 60 per cent of men," Dr Shigeru Omi, WHO's regional director for the West Pacific told a conference in Japan. "However, if nothing is done to counter the tobacco industry's increasing efforts to recruit new smokers, this will change dramatically for the worse over the next 25 to 30 years."
In the meantime air tickets to this part of the world should carry warnings: "Travel to south-east Asia can damage your health."