中国人有多高的幸福感？（上） [美国媒体]

Are Chinese people really happy under their government?

中国人有多高的幸福感？（上）



Shou'en Li, Editor-in-Chief, Reporter(2003-present)
Answered Mar 20
The newly publicized World Happiness Report2018 by the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) for the UnitedNations on March 14 has obviously given a negative answer to this question,representing the Chinese people.
And Gallup, the American research-basedcompany, which is known for its public opinion polls conducted worldwide, andon whose surveys that the UN World Happiness Report 2018 is based, will neitherthink Chinese people are happy under the Chinese government.
Here is the proof:
China is the 86th happiest country in theworld according to the report, among the 156 countries it has analyzed based ontheir happiness in terms of income, life expectancy, social support, freedom,trust, generosity and absence of corruption, and 117 by the happiness of theirimmigrants.
(But a smart move by the report is to listTaiwan, who ranks 26th, as a province of China, btw.)
Data from: World Happiness Report 2018
You know what? The report has triggeredimmediate attention in China, not because China, after a year of hard work andstable development, slipped even lower from the 79th in the 2017 WorldHappiness Report to 86th in the 2018 report, but because, as the second largesteconomy, and as one of the major powers in the world, with no wars or evenserious conflicts within the nation for decades, China is ranked even lowerthan Libya, where the first civil war broke out in 2011 and the second brokeout in 2014, and is still jeopardizing its people today.
What’s more ironical is Libya only slippeddownward from 68th in the 2017 report to 70th in the 2018 one, while Chinaheaded down 7 positions!
Data from: World Happiness Report 2017
Well, since I have never visited theAfrican nation, I might not have a say whether people there are really happy ornot. But thanks to the Internet, we can check it out here, for example, in anRT (Russia Today) report dated on March 19, 2018, it says:
https://www.rt.com/op-ed/421711-...
“Seven years ago today, NATO began its ‘humanitarian bombing’ ofLibya. While ‘humanitarian bombing’ is an oxymoron, many believe that a countryis not truly advancing human rights if it’s not bombing another back to theStone Age.
What’s more, the Libyan invasion did moreto undermine human rights than it did to protect them. According to AmnestyInternational’s most recent report on Libya, there are now three rivalgovernments vying for power in the country along with various militias,smugglers and other sundry armed groups.
In addition, during the early part of 2017,one armed faction laid siege to an apartment complex in the Ganfouda area ofBenghazi, ‘cutting off all supplies to the area, including food and water, andhad trapped civilians and wounded fighters [of another faction] without accessto medical care and other basic services.’ And, when the same faction broke thesiege by launching an armed assault on this area, it engaged in ‘indiscriminate’killings, with fighters from the faction posing for photos with the deadbodies.”
Also the same day, Atlantic Councilpublished an article, Going Local in Libya:
http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/b...
“The political situation in Libya has slowly reached one of apparentparalysis while the military situation is continually evolving with frequentclashes across the country. Given the lack of any progress, the whole approachundertaken by the international community has clearly failed and desperatelyneeds a new strategy.”
But I am living in China, I know how it islike in China today. I certainly know whether I am happy.
I like strolling in parks in Beijing, andmy most favorite one is the Summer Palace, where it is not too far away from myhome. Here are photos from my mobile phone, I took them during separate visitsthere, sometimes by myself to enjoy the tranquility of it, sometimes to bringmy son and his friends to play in it.
I also like jogging in the morning inanother park, so these are photos taken by me too.
And this one was taken when my family wentto the neighboring Tianjin municipality, just to bring my son there to play thesnow, because unfortunately it didn’t snow for the whole 2017 winter inBeijing.
And these are taken in a restaurant, whenseveral families of friends gathered together. The kids were playing and eatingjoyfully.
This was taken while my son was practicingskating in a stadium.
And this is taken when my family went toHouhai, a place where many expats here in Beijing are quite familiar with, tohave a night view of it.
And this was taken in my mom’s home incentral China’s Hunan Province when we had a big family reunion during theSpring Festival.
These are just pictures I randomly selectedfrom my mobile phone storage, actually I have thousands of similar ones. Ibelieve many more Chinese have photos of this kind in their mobile phones, intheir computers, in their daily life, and in their memories......
I don’t think I need to say more, right?

3月14号刚出版的联合国《2018全球幸福报告》已经代表中国人给出了一个否定的答案。
而这份报告的数据来源盖洛普咨询公司也不觉得现在的中国人是幸福的。
证据如下：
根据这份报告，中国在全世界的幸福指数排名第86位，总共是156个国家，分析的依据是收入，人均寿命，社会支持，自由，信任，慷慨以及腐败的缺乏。而根据移民的幸福感，中国排名第117位。

（这个报告还列出了台湾，排名第26位，顺便说一下，台湾是中国的一个省）
数据来源：2018全球幸福报告。
你知道吗？这份报道立刻引起中国人的关注，不是因为中国在经过一年的努力和稳定发展竟然还从2017年的第79位下降到今年的第86位，而是因为作为世界第二大经济体和世界大国，几十年来国内没有发生战争和严重冲突，排名上竟然比利比亚还低，利比亚2011年首次爆发内战，2014年再次爆发内战，直到如今其人民依然受苦。
更讽刺的是利比亚从2017年的第68位下降到2018年的70位，只下降两位，而中国下降了7位！

由于我从未去过这个非洲国家，所以我没资格说这个国家的人民到底幸不幸福。但是幸亏网络的存在，我们可以在网上查询，比如《今日俄罗斯》2018年3月19号的报道称：
“七年前的今天，北约开始对利比亚进行“人道主义轰炸”。虽然“人道主义轰炸”是个逆喻，但是很多人依然认为如果一个国家不将另一个国家炸回石器时代，那就不算是在推进人权。
此外，入侵利比亚更多的是破坏了人权而不是保护了人权。根据大赦国际最近的利比亚报告，现在利比亚有三股势力在争夺权力，还有各种的民兵，走私贩以及其他的一些武装团体。

另外，2017年早些时候，一个武装派别包围了班加西的一个小区，切断了所有供应，包括食物和水，让里面的平民和敌人无法获得医疗救助和其他的基本服务。在这个武装派别发起进攻后进行了无差别杀戮，其中某些士兵和死人头合影。
就在同一天，《大西洋理事会》也发表了一篇文章：
“利比亚的局势显然已经陷入瘫痪，全国范围内经常出现军事冲突。考虑到没有取得任何进展，国际社会的努力显然已经失败了，急需新的对策。”



Ruoyu Liu, studied at Sun Yat-SenUniversity (2014)
Updated Thu
I was born in the winter of 1991, in asmall city called Weinan, Shaanxi Province. My father was a worker in a state-ownedchemical plant and my mother was a primary school teacher.
The 1990s witnessed China’s market economicreform when many of the stated-owned enterprises were forced to close downbecause the reform marked an end of government funding. All of a sudden myfather went unemployed, at the year I was born. And my mother’s salarycontributed little to the household income. In other words, I was born in afamily literally with nothing.
In order to feed the family, my fatherstarted as an apprentice in a small firm doing decoration business. After 3years, he started his own business based on what he had learned as anapprentice.
Back then we were so poor that my parentswere always reluctant to buy me any snacks or toys. For many years, we had torent single-storey houses here and there which were always unhygienic. Duringwinter we could even not afford the heating, my mother can still recall todaythat I was crying at nights as an infant because of cold. My mom once askedwhat was my dream when I was young, I said: ‘That we can have our own home.’
(Despite the poor life we had, my parentsstill tried their best to give me a happy childhood, this photo was taken in1997 in Shandong province when we had our first trip outside the hometown )
Then my father’s business started tothrive. In 2002 we finally purchased our first apartment, I still remember Iwas so excited that I didn’t sleep at all the night before moving in. Thisphoto was taken when we moved in: we thanked the blessings of our ancestors -my grandfather passed away before I was born and we believed he had blessed usall along.
Later on we started to have cars and moreproperties, from 2005 onwards my father transferred his business toinstallations of natural gas pipelines. In recent years my parents had beentraveling around China. This photo was taken in 2013 during their trip toFujian.
In the old days, Chinese from NorthernChina got warm by burning coals, which was one of the major contributors of airpollution during winter, as you might have seen in some media coverage.Realizing this, the government initiated the project known as ‘coal to gas’ (煤改气) in everycity in need of heating. My father's firm was commissioned by the government toinstall the pipelines in major districts of our city before it was getting coldin 2014. Those days I saw my father led 4 teams involving 50 people to work onthe project day and night. And they did finish the job before the deadline. Oneday my dad came back very happily and said ‘we’ve completed the pipelines sothat people in our city won't suffer from cold, I think I’ve done a good thingfor the people!’.
From then on, the air quality in our cityhas greatly improved. This is the picture I took yesterday when I went for awalk. Have you ever seen such pictures on the biased western media? Probablynot, because it isn’t eye-catching enough.
10 years ago it was unimaginable for myfamily to afford me to study overseas, now I’ve finished my 4-year study inAustralia.
10 years ago I had to take an 1.5-hour busto Xi’an, the capital city of our province, to attend high school; nowadaysyoung students spend 19 minutes to Xi’an by high speed trains.
10 years ago I thought the developedcountries must be the paradises on earth, now I’ve returned to China to witnessthe great changes of my homeland, even though she is still imperfect.
So back to your question - are Chinesepeople really happy under their government? Well I’d say the Chinese have afresh memory of what we’ve been through over the years, thus fully understandthe importance of a competent government. Sure my family built our fortune byworking hard, but we are unlikely to achieve this without a stable environmentand the opportunities provided by the government. Most importantly, there aremillions of Chinese, like my father who would rather solve problems practicallythan blindly adopting foreign models.

我生于1991年冬天，陕西渭南人。我父亲是国有化工厂工人，我妈妈是小学老师。
90年代见证了中国市场经济改革，很多国企被迫关门，因为改革意味着拿不到政府拨款了。一夜之间我父亲失业了，就在我出生的那一年。而我母亲的工资在家庭收入中的比重小的可怜。也就是说，我生在了一个一无所有的家庭。
为了养家，父亲开始在小公司里当实习生，搞装修。3年后，他利用自己所学成立了自己的公司。

当时我们很穷，父母经常都不愿意给我买零食或者玩具。多年来我们得不得到处租单层的房子住，一般都很不卫生。冬天，我们负担不起暖气，我妈妈还记得我小时候夜里因为冷而哭喊。有一次我妈妈问我的梦想是什么，我说：“我们有自己的家”。
（虽然我们贫穷，但是父母依然努力的让我拥有一个快乐的童年，这张照片拍摄于1997年的山东省，这是我们第一次离开家乡去外地玩）

然后我父亲的生意开始繁荣起来。2002年，我们终于购买了第一套公寓，我还记得自己非常激动，入住前一晚整晚都没睡着。这张照片拍摄于我们入住时：我们感谢祖先的保佑——我爷爷在我出生前过世了，我们相信他一直在保佑我们。
后来我们有了汽车和更多房产，从2005年开始，我父亲开始转行做天然气管道的安装。最近几年，我父母经常全国到处游玩。这张照片是2013年去福建游玩时拍摄的。

旧时，中国北方靠烧炭取暖，这也是冬天空气污染的主要原因之一。意识到这个问题后，政府开始在每个需要供热的城市实施“煤改气”计划。2014年政府委托我父亲的公司在我们城市的主要地区安装管道以应对冬天的到来。那时候我父亲带领四个团队总共50人日夜加班。并且在截止日期前完成了任务。有一天我父亲回来非常高兴的说‘我们已经安装完管道，这样我们市的市民就不用受冻了，我觉得我给人民办了好事’。
从那时开始，我们市的空气质量大幅提高。这是昨天我散步时拍摄的照片。你在富有偏见的西方媒体上看过这种照片吗？可能没有吧，因为那不够抓眼球。

十年前想都不敢想家人供我去海外读书，而现在我已经完成在澳洲的4年留学。
十年前我必须得坐一个半小时的巴士到西安去上中学；如今，人们坐19分钟高铁就可以到西安。
十年前我以为发达国家肯定是人间天堂，现在我回国看到祖国发生了巨大变化，虽然她还不是完美的。
所以回到你的问题——中国人现在真的感到幸福吗？我想说的是中国人依然清晰地记得自己所经历过的事情，所以我们知道拥有一个有能力的政府是多么的重要。当然，我的家庭是靠勤奋才富裕的，但是如果没有政府提供的稳定环境和机会，我们是不可能实现的。最重要的是，有无数中国人像我父亲那样实事求是地解决问题而不是盲目的采用外国模式。
（8K个赞）

Usama Ahmad
Aug 12, 2017 · 68 upvotes
That picture you took on your walk isincredible! Such a beautiful city.

你散步时拍的照片太美了！真是个美丽的城市。

Ruoyu Liu
Aug 12, 2017 · 45 upvotes including UsamaAhmad and Robin Daverman
And this city is, by Chinese standard,classified as a Tier-4 city.

而且以中国标准看，这座城市还只是四线城市。



Neil Desai
Sep 7, 2017 · 77 upvotes including RuoyuLiu
I have to say, I am very impressed by yourfamily’s attitude towards hard work and government. In America, where Icurrently live, many wealthy people believe that they earned their wealththrough their own efforts and that the government had no role in it, thus theyhate paying taxes and oppose everything the government does for people’swelfare. Conversely, many poor people believe that it is the government’s dutyto provide them a job. Thus, if someone becomes unemployed due to a factoryclosing, he protests and yells that the government should reopen the factoryinstead of learning new skills and pursuing a different job like your fatherdid. Here you have managed to combine the willingness to work hard with anappreciation for the government that makes that possible. I’m sure this sort ofpractical, flexible attitude is a major contributor to your country’s success.

我得说，我非常敬佩你家人的勤劳以及对政府的态度。在美国，我现在居住的国家，很多富人认为自己的财富是自己赚来的，政府一点帮助没有，因此他们不想纳税，反对政府为了人民福利而做的任何事情。反之，很多穷人认为政府有义务给他们提供就业。因此，如果某人因为工厂关闭而失业，他就会抗议，要求政府重新开张那家工厂，而不是自己去学习新技能从事新工作，像你父亲那样。也就是说，一方面自己要勤奋，另一方面要感恩政府，这样才可能成功。我猜这种务实的灵活的态度正是你们国家取得成功的主要原因吧。

Ruoyu Liu
Sep 7, 2017 · 16 upvotes including NeilDesai
Thanks for you comment Neil, my father oncesaid the factory closing at early 90s was a bad memory for him as he literallyhad nothing those days, but he said he understood the economic reform was inthe right direction, hence he has never blamed the government.

感谢楼上的评论，我父亲说过90年代初期的工厂关闭对他来说是一个糟糕的记忆，因为当时他真的是一无所有，但是他说他知道那次的经济改革是正确的，因此他从未抱怨过政府。

Ram Sankapal
Aug 15, 2017 · 28 upvotes including RuoyuLiu
I am referring first photograph, in whichtwo of the three family members are folding hands, the gesture called as‘namaskar’ in india. Is it common in china too?

第一张照片里面，有两个人的手部姿势，在我们印度称之为“namaskar”（合十礼）。这种姿势在中国也很普遍吗？

Ruoyu Liu
Aug 15, 2017 · 69 upvotes including RamSankapal
Hi Ram, yes we call that ‘合十礼’ inChinese. It was first adopted by Chinese Buddhists and then became common forordinary Chinese as a gesture for praying or ancestor worship. It is nosurprise as Buddhism originated from India.

楼上的，你好，我们称之为“合十礼”。刚开始的时候是中国佛教徒这么用的，后来普通中国人也这样来祈祷或者拜祖先。由于佛教起源于印度，所以没啥好奇怪的。
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