Happy Asia

Asians are happy people. They smile, sing and dance a lot and have a carefree and positive attitude. So it is not surprising that Asia is relatively a ‘happy region’ according to some happiness index surveys.

The World Database of Happiness study indicates that Asian countries are within the middle range of happiness—how long and happy people live.

Asians’ response to the question “how happy do you feel as you live now?” has been fairly high with communist Viet Nam topping the list.

In a recent study called Happy Planet Index (HPI) by a British think-tank New Economics Forum (NEF), Viet Nam (2), followed by Bangladesh (11) and Indonesia (14), have been cited as the happiest in Asia, even happier than the United States (105). Conspicuously missing is Bhutan, which has been cited as the happiest country in Asia and the only country in the world that uses Gross National Happiness rather than Gross Domestic Product as indicator. The previous overall topnotcher Pacific Island of Vanuatu is also not among the countries listed.

According to NEF, this report is “an index of human well-being and environmental impact”, which moves beyond crude ratings of nations according to national income, measured by gross domestic product to produce a more accurate picture of the progress of nations based on the amount of the Earth’s resources they use, and the length and happiness of people’s lives.” In the report, a list has been provided about the ranking of the countries.

The NEF study measured life satisfaction, life expectancy and environmental footprint, which is the amount of land required to sustain the population and absorb its energy consumption.

More affluent countries in Europe fell at the bottom half of the HPI because of low ecological footprint while relatively poor countries were on top of the list.

Asia’s rich like Hong Kong, Japan, Brunei, South Korea and Singapore scored low in the study because they mostly fell in the last indicator, the ecological footprint, but some scored relatively high in life satisfaction and life expectancy.

But happiness in Asia seems slipping.

A 2007 survey in Thailand, known as the land of smiles, says its gross domestic happiness index, which measures collective contentment on a 1 to 10 scale, fell to 5.1 points compared with 5.7 the year before. The survey demonstrated the public’s satisfaction or dissatisfaction with various sectors including security, public utilities, good governance, trade, social justice, allocation of resources, education and community problems.

But for a country like Bangladesh that leapfrogged to 11 from over 30 within a few years, there seems to be a revolution going on.

Overall, Costa Rica came out first while Chad and Botswana were at the bottom of the list.

HOW ASIAN NATIONS RANKED AMONG 151 COUNTRIES:
Viet Nam (2),

Bangladesh (11)

Indonesia (14)

Pakistan (16)

Thailand (20)

Philippines (24)

India (33)

Sri Lanka (36)

Laos (38)
Japan (46)

Nepal (59)

China (61)

Myanmar (62)

Korea  (64)

Malaysia (82)

Cambodia (85)

Singapore (89)