Got Xingfu?

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,

that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,

that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

The notion of happiness as a right has for the most part been a part of Western classical values, reflected in the writings of the ancient Greeks and carried down through multiple generations of Judeo-Christian religious prelates and scholarly philosophers alike. The Asian notion, ranging from the peaceful detachment inherent in Buddhist thought to a more generalized accepting doctrine of “contentment,” harmony and being satisfied with your lot in life, always appeared more realistic, if not a touch sad. But as the Chinese leadership lays out the plans for the coming years, there’s a new concept in the air: that the Chinese people have a right to be happy.

The wave of “Are you happy?” is sweeping China and rapidly replacing that old greeting, “Have you eaten?” The May 20^th Los Angeles Times describes how this concept is now an official policy of the Chinese government: “[H]appiness is on the tip of every Chinese politician's tongue. ‘Everything we do is aimed at letting people live more happily and with more dignity,’ Premier Wen Jiabao declared in his New Year's address to the nation. During the National People's Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference in March, it came up so often that the official New China News Agency proclaimed, ‘No doubt, 'happiness' is the keyword for the two sessions.’” It’s a whole new way of looking at the world; xingfu (happiness) has not been the normal road of inquiry in China.

But when a rage sweeps China, it’s like a plains wildfire carried to extreme in flowing gusts. “At the local level, municipal governments are drawing up happiness indexes and competing with one another for the title of ‘China's happiest city.’… ‘It even sounds a little weird in Chinese to ask, 'Are you happy?' but now there is so much talk about happiness, it's almost become a cliché,’ said Christopher K. Hsee, a Chinese-born University of Chicago professor who is credited with bringing happiness studies to China…Why is the Chinese government suddenly jumping on the happiness bandwagon? Cynics might argue that officials are looking for an alternate measure of success for that inevitable point when economic growth plateaus. But Hsee believes the concept of happiness is a natural corollary of the Communist Party' s propaganda about creating a ‘harmonious society.’” LA Times.

Money can’t buy happiness, but Chinese peasants’ clinging to a survivor/subsistence lifestyle for centuries couldn’t be very mirth-inducing or joyful. In half a generation, the real earning power for the average Chinese worker has increased by a factor of five, just as the American standard of living appears to be in some serious long-term jeopardy. As Chinese workers are smiling and laughing a lot more – a fact to which I can attest having visited the Peoples Republic repeatedly since the door swung open – Americans are bickering among themselves, much more quick to anger, seeking scapegoats to blame for our recent malaise.

In the big Chinese cities, skyscrapers gleam, new cars on the road congest, theme parks and modern malls are opening all the time. It’s a new glorious world to the average Chinese, although there are millions in the hinterlands yet to taste of their nation’s new prosperity and others, breathing foul air and watching seething pollution destroy waterways, who are less than convinced that this is all for the betterment of the Chinese people.

But when it comes to proving that the Chinese are vastly happier, the various polls and “happiness” indices have yet to support the theory: “In advance of the National People's Congress, a state-owned information portal, China.com.cn, polled 1,350 people and discovered that only 6% listed themselves as ‘very happy,’ as opposed to 48% who were distinctly ‘not happy.’ (The rest were ‘so-so’ or ‘unsure.’ ) A news story reporting the unhappy results in the English-language China Daily was promptly zapped from the Internet.

“The results of another poll must have been even more alarming to the powers that be. Gallup last month ranked China 92nd out of 124 countries in a poll in which people assessed their own ‘well-being.’ Only 12% of Chinese described themselves as ‘thriving.’ That put China roughly on par with Egypt, Libya, Yemen and Bahrain, countries where the discontent bubbled up in the form of popular uprisings. Denmark led the pack with 72% of people reporting that they were thriving, while the United States came in at No. 12, with 59%.” LA Times. Hey, at least the Chinese are thinking about being happy for a change!

I’m Peter Dekom, and I think we need to start conducting “misery” polls to reflect the American mood these days.