Tallest Building

Monday, April 25, 2011

Hong Kong Dragon

Dragon boat races are believed to have originated in China more than 2,500 years ago, contemporaneous with the Greeks beginning their games at Olympia. Beyond a sporting event, the races and water festivals serve as a veneration to the dragons, hoping for health through the dangerously warm and humid summer months.

Last night I ventured off to Soba Restaurant with 'Clover', 'Schaf' and 'C.A.' to celebrate the Dragon Boat Festival with a special tasting menu inspired by the cuisines of south-central China.

Hong Kong Dim Sum

Best restaurants in Hong Kong

In a city famous for its food, its hard to know where to start – both locals and foreigners are grasping with the question what are the best restaurants in Hong Kong? Cantonese cuisine is a perfect balance of rich flavors and high quality ingredients. While the sophistication of Cantonese cuisine can be overwhelming at times, Hong Kong offers an array of Westernized restaurants serving up urban fare that sill maintains a unique awareness of the caliber of Cantonese cuisine. From dim sum trolleys to tea partys from private dining rooms to holes in the wall- Hong Kong has it all.

Tip: Several restaurants in Hong Kong’s Soho and Lan Kwai Fong district offer half price menus on Mondays.

My favourite spot is TIVO for its thin crust pizzas with high quality toppings. Try their mushroom pizza with 4 different types of mushrooms and truffle oil. Make sure you sample one of their flavor infused martinis.

Gallup Releases Latest National Wellbeing Poll Results

Gallup's deserted front desk. Apparently everyone
was out doing surveys. From The Woodlands Texas.

The Atlantic reports that Gallup, one of the world's leading statistical organizations, has released its 2010 list of countries ranked by wellbeing. Here are the top five, along with how many of its citizens are "thriving" by their own admission:

Denmark: 72% thriving
Sweden: 69% thriving
Canada: 69% thriving
Australia: 65% thriving
Finland: 64% thriving

Some other interesting factoids: the U.S. ranks 12th with 59%, which is between Panama and Austria. Also, the United Kingdom ranks 17th with 54%, which is just ahead of Qatar, but just below the United Arab Emirates. It'll be interesting to see if the U.K.'s rank improves once its Gross National Happiness measures kick into gear. As far as I know, none of the countries in the top five has official measures like that (except possibly Canada in the future).

Like the gap between the rich and the poor, there is also a huge gap in wellbeing. In 19 countries, the majority of citizens consider themselves to be thriving, yet in a whopping 67 countries, that percentage falls below 25. Russia is one of these, with 24% of its population thriving. So is China with 12%, which is even lower than Iraq, Libya, and Tunisia. The Chinese government apparently has a long way to go if they're serious about focusing on happiness (which they probably aren't).

The African nation of Chad comes in at the bottom of the list with only 1% of its population thriving. Of course, there may be worse countries out there, but those aren't even well enough to report statistics.

Thursday, April 21, 2011

The Happiest Places Also Have The Highest Suicide Rates

By Vincent Van Gogh. From 0rchid Thief.

Some troubling news today, as Eurasia Review reports on new research that compares the happiness, both of cities and of countries, to suicide rates. It's all part of a research paper entitled "Dark Contrasts: The Paradox of High Rates of Suicide in Happy Places" from University of Warwick, Hamilton College in New York and the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

Researchers have previously suspected a link between national happiness data and suicide rates when it comes to Denmark, but this new study shows a similar link in Canada, the United States, Iceland, Ireland, and Switzerland. Since different cultures have different standards on reporting suicide rates, so the paper also goes into detail on happiness and suicide rates within a single geographic region--namely the United States.

Using a happiness sample of 1.3 million Americans and data on 1 million "suicide decisions," the researchers found happy states are also high in number of suicides. For instance, Utah was ranked first in life satisfaction, but showed the 9th highest suicide rate, while New York was ranked 45th in life satisfaction, yet had the lowest suicide rate in the country. Hawaii, sometimes considered the happiest state, was second on their life satisfaction list, yet had the fifth highest suicide rate.

The researchers theorize that this link happens because humans always compare themselves to those around them. In other words, living in a happy place could make unhappy people even MORE unhappy because they feel disconnected from the happy people around them. As Professor Andrew Oswald of the University of Warwick says, “Those dark contrasts may in turn increase the risk of suicide. If humans are subject to mood swings, the lows of life may thus be most tolerable in an environment in which other humans are unhappy.”

Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Happiness Apparently Makes You Eat Candy

From A Basket Case.

The Times of India reports that happy people tend to eat candy, while "hopeful" people eat fruit and vegetables. This comes from a series of studies by Karen Page Winterich of Pennsylvania State University and Kelly L. Haws of Texas A&M University. They got their results by having participants either thinking about the past, present, or future, then seeing whether they picked candy or fruit.

In the first study, hopeful participants ate less M&Ms than those thinking of present happiness. In the second, participants thinking of the past ate even more unhealthy snacks. In the third study, participants thought of positive emotions in the past and the future. The "future" people chose healthier food.

The study authors conclude, "So the next time you're feeling well, don't focus too much on all the good things in the past. Instead, keep that positive glow and focus on your future, especially all the good things you imagine to come. Your waistline will thank you!"

Overall, this sounds like a rather unconventional series of studies with a lot going on. The article doesn't go into much detail, but it sounds like different snacks were used in each study (M&Ms in one, unspecified candy bars in another, etc.), which could make the conclusions suspicious because of all the variables. I also hope the authors kept strict definitions of "hope," "pride," and "happiness," as these are somewhat airy concepts that participants could have defined however they wanted.

Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Apparently Working Long Hours Makes Americans Happier?

From Static.

Yeah, this one's just crazy enough that it might be true. The Daily Mail reports that Americans who work long hours are happier than those who don't, while in Europe, that trend is reversed. This information comes from a study at the University of Texas at Dallas. The study's authors could not conclude whether work actually CAUSES happiness in America, but they speculate that the results have more to do with worker expectations and the pursuit of income than with their actions.

American and European survey respondents were asked to rate themselves as "Very Happy," "Pretty Happy," or "Not too Happy." Results showed that "Very Happy" Europeans dropped from around 28% to 23% as work hours increased from under 17 a week to more than 60. American happiness, on the other hand, stayed the same as work hours increased, while their sense of "bliss" increased. This holds true despite other factors, such as age, marital status, and income.

Economics professor Richard Easterlin, who was not involved in the study, but comments on it anyway, theorizes that Americans believe more in the rewards of hard work. "It's not really that hard work brings more success in the U.S. than in Europe; it's what people believe in," he says.

You can read the actual study in the April issue of the Journal of Happiness Studies.