Cultural Happiness

This piece discusses the differences in notions of "happiness" across cultures. Asian happiness and American happiness do not appear to be the same. I started writing these posts about happiness from something I read on Joi Ito's blog. Joi grew up in both cultures, which is sure to add a whole new spin to his personal pursuit of happiness.

The New Scientist asks the question Are Asians Less Happy?

The same link above says the happiest people are HISPANICS! That's it! I'm going to crank up the Christina Aguilera! And have some huevos rancheros.

Read this other link from The New Scientist:

What's more, the things that give people happiness, satisfaction and meaning in their lives vary considerably between cultures. Shinobu Kitayama at Kyoto University in Japan and Hazel Rose Markus at Stanford University, California, believe that how satisfied a person is with their life depends largely on how successfully they adhere to their particular cultural "standard".

In the US, satisfaction comes from personal success, self-expression, pride, a high sense of self-esteem and a distinct sense of self. In Japan, on the other hand, it comes from fulfilling the expectations of your family, meeting your social responsibilities, self-discipline, cooperation and friendliness. So while in the US it is perfectly appropriate to pursue your own happiness, in Japan you are more likely to find happiness by not directly pursuing it.

And there's another twist. The happiest nations - mostly western and individualistic ones - also tend to have the highest levels of suicide. "There are some real downsides to individualistic cultures," says Ed Diener at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. "People with mental illness are in real trouble with no extended family to watch over them."

This stuff is pretty fascinating for me personally, as my ex is Chinese-American and we had a CORE disagreement about happiness as the basic conflict of our married life and then big contributing factor to our separation and divorce.