Most Happy Nation

By Kevin Fedarko

The French say they're happy -- in a manner of speaking. Despite 12% unemployment, a faltering franc and the highest number of AIDS cases in Europe, an opinion poll in the weekly Le Nouvel Observateur found that 88% of French people claim to be happy. Huh? It turns out that the French are just happy not to be unhappy: relief at holding a job and not being infected with AIDS is what makes them smile.

The French, of course, take the question seriously. Each day during August, the newspaper Liberation devoted a full page to leading pontificators on the art of feeling good. Jean-Michel Cousteau, son of oceanographer Jacques, recently proposed creating a "Science of Joy" in which "happinessologists" would study gaiety in all its guises. Several neurologists in Paris even claim they can use thermography to record changes in the brain generated by le bonheur to determine who is really content.

But has the Gallic propensity for philosophizing really brought the French closer to understanding this thing called happiness? The U.N. once formulated a 12-point list of prerequisites for being happy that includes one radio, one bicycle and one set of kitchen utensils per family. But after such items have been acquired, what then? That leaves the field to the pollsters, who have attempted to catalog the many flavors of felicity by quizzing citizens around the world on whether they are "satisfied" with their jobs, "fulfilled" with their sex lives and "at ease" with themselves.

The numbers, naturally, lie -- or only tell smidgens of the truth. The Nouvel Observateur poll neglected to point out that a Gallup survey one year ago had pronounced France among the unhappiest societies on the Continent. The poll also disclosed that 72% of French are in fact less happy today than they were 10 years ago, 60% believe things will "get worse," and 66% are plagued by the troubling knowledge that somewhere in the world there may actually be people who are not as happy as they are.

Like the Germans. To the less fortunate, the Germans live in paradise. They have achieved a miracle of high income and productivity with the fewest work hours. They love time off, especially at vacation spots that require a minimum of clothing and a maximum of sunscreen. They shop madly and stand in long lines at the cheese counter, are figure conscious and sports crazy, and see their doctors regularly. But if you ask a German how he's doing, the response is a shrug.

In a recent survey, less than one-third admitted to being "very happy," while only 31% of West Germans and a mere 9% in the East could agree with the statement "We live in a happy age." Moreover, surprisingly quirky definitions were offered when the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung asked, "What for you is complete happiness on earth?" The sensual, said Swiss writer Hans A. Pestalozzi: "Sex with a woman one loves under the smoldering heat of the sun." The mundane, said theater critic Georg Hensel: "Sole fried in butter." And former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt declared definitively, "There's no such thing."

The British felt pretty good about themselves back in the '80s, what with victory in the Falklands and Margaret Thatcher as Prime Minister. Now they are unhappy about what they don'thave: a thriving economy, job security, falling crime rates, ethnic harmony. No wonder a Gallup poll in July found that 54% feel their country is a snobbish, class-ridden society, 75% are convinced that the royal family lead indolent, jet-set lives, and only 3% predict that Britain will remain a world power in the next decade. Such responses may explain why, when asked if they would like to leavethe country, 47% said they would pack their bags before teatime.

The Russians, on the other hand, have never pretended to happiness. So pollsters there prefer to plumb matters about which the Russians have some working knowledge -- like misery. Surveys reveal that a growing minority, now 14%, feel they would have been better off if the hard-line coup of 1991 had succeeded, 63% say they are sorry the Soviet Union collapsed and 72% believe life under capitalism is even more wretched than it was under communism. So depressed are the Russians that 27% confided to pollsters that they would be delighted to emigrate to Western Europe, even if it meant moving to Britain.

, Until several years ago, the best chance of finding instant felicity was to go to Japan, a society that polls still purport to be among the most satisfied on earth. A principal reason for such fulfillment no doubt lay in one of the country's most alluring tourist attractions: a remote railway depot on the northern island of Hokkaido called Koufuku Eki, or Happiness Station. There, travelers whose feet had strayed from the path to contentment could set themselves aright by reaching into their pockets, plunking down $2.10 and buying, literally, "a ticket to Happiness."

Unfortunately, because the railway failed to make sufficient profits, Koufuku Eki was forced to shut its doors in 1987 -- a passing that has left the world a notch less happy.

With reporting by Victoria Foote-Greenwell/Paris, Satsuki Oba/Tokyo and Rhea Schoenthal/Bonn