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Hong Kong people "don't know how to smile"

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  1. #1

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    Hong Kong people "don't know how to smile"

    So I was reading a local free newspaper, and one of them has a news headline that says "Hong Kong people don't know how to smile" . Hmmm...ok, must be a slow news day. But come to think of it, is there a grain of truth in that?

    The news report says that based on a random survey of 878 people, only 7% of people smile 11 times or more per day. According to local pyschologists, HK people seldom express happiness and says Hong Kong people are too serious, realistic and pragmatic and do not know how to "enjoy life".

    On a postive note, this survey debunks the materialistic myth of Hong Kongers, by saying most local derive their happiness first and foremost from family, second by love and third by health, with money only coming in the 4th place. However, the survey then immediately contradicts itself by saying what locals are most happy about is getting $6000 (well to be honest, who would'nt? ), follow by the royal wedding () and Tony Chan getting the shaft from the courts .

    In truth, I think whether locals smile more or less depends on the setting. In a drink with friends, I have seen locals laugh out loud nonstop, and I have seen random (if rare) public acts of kindness. But at work, what you get is a "forced" smile, as they are "forced" to be polite with their colleagues, even if the truth is they hate each other's guts. I rather they smile less but give me a genuine smile on the right occasion, then those fake smiles you see everyday at the shops.


  2. #2

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    Hmmm... most Hong Kong people:

    Make about 10K a month
    live in a 400 sq ft box HOS with their parents, children
    work 9 hours a day +2-3 hours forced non-paid overtime 6 days a week
    Crazy pollution.
    Have been raised to goto their tutors and school/school 9-12 hours a day.

    I wonder why they don't smile?

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  3. #3

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    But HK people use a lot of emoticons online

    Quote Originally Posted by Watercooler:
    So I was reading a local free newspaper, and one of them has a news headline that says "Hong Kong people don't know how to smile" . Hmmm...ok, must be a slow news day. But come to think of it, is there a grain of truth in that?

    The news report says that based on a random survey of 878 people, only 7% of people smile 11 times or more per day. According to local pyschologists, HK people seldom express happiness and says Hong Kong people are too serious, realistic and pragmatic and do not know how to "enjoy life".

    On a postive note, this survey debunks the materialistic myth of Hong Kongers, by saying most local derive their happiness first and foremost from family, second by love and third by health, with money only coming in the 4th place. However, the survey then immediately contradicts itself by saying what locals are most happy about is getting $6000 (well to be honest, who would'nt? ), follow by the royal wedding () and Tony Chan getting the shaft from the courts .

    In truth, I think whether locals smile more or less depends on the setting. In a drink with friends, I have seen locals laugh out loud nonstop, and I have seen random (if rare) public acts of kindness. But at work, what you get is a "forced" smile, as they are "forced" to be polite with their colleagues, even if the truth is they hate each other's guts. I rather they smile less but give me a genuine smile on the right occasion, then those fake smiles you see everyday at the shops.

  4. #4

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    emoticons are fake and dont make your cheeks ache.. @_@

    when I was young in the nineties here I always thought HK people cant dance...

    Last edited by audiot; 22-11-2011 at 11:25 AM.

  5. #5

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    Quote Originally Posted by audiot:

    when I was young in the nineties here I always thought HK people cant dance...
    Thats still the case now

  6. #6

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    Quote Originally Posted by pizzalover:
    But HK people use a lot of emoticons online
    That depends whether I consider myself as a Hong Kong "person" or simply an expat living here.

  7. #7

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    Quote Originally Posted by aliendavid1:
    Hmmm... most Hong Kong people:

    Make about 10K a month
    live in a 400 sq ft box HOS with their parents, children
    work 9 hours a day +2-3 hours forced non-paid overtime 6 days a week
    Crazy pollution.
    Have been raised to goto their tutors and school/school 9-12 hours a day.

    I wonder why they don't smile?
    No, there are other places that are way more poor and generally impoverished then Hong Kong yet they score much higher on the happiness index (and smile more too). Philippines and Nepal for example are much worst off then Hong Kong in living standards yet scores much higher then Hong Kong.
    Last edited by Watercooler; 22-11-2011 at 11:29 AM.

  8. #8

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    Quote Originally Posted by Watercooler:
    No, there are other places that are way more poor and generally impoverished then Hong Kong yet they score much higher on the happiness index (and smile more too). Philippines and Nepal for example are much worst off then Hong Kong in living standards yet scores much higher then Hong Kong.
    Probably true, but everyone is just as poor as you if not worse.

    What i mean is they do not know how "poor" they are, but in Hong Kong the inequalities are so vast that you see it everyday to remind you.
    Last edited by aliendavid1; 22-11-2011 at 11:42 AM.
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  9. #9

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    Quote Originally Posted by Watercooler:
    No, there are other places that are way more poor and generally impoverished then Hong Kong yet they score much higher on the happiness index (and smile more too). Philippines and Nepal for example are much worst off then Hong Kong in living standards yet scores much higher then Hong Kong.
    On a related but not totally same subject, apparently you are not much "happier" (as defined in the survey I quote below - rather measure of environmental efficiency of supporting well-being in a given country) in Western countries than in hK:

    Happy Planet Index - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

  10. #10

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    I'd agree that the overall attitude here is a bit more serious. Especially for, say, uni students.

    In my first year of uni in England, we spent our time doing ridiculous practical jokes E.g. throwing eggs out of windows at drunks at 3am, putting corned beef in flatmate's shower gel, planting a tomato ketchup stained tampon in a girls' shared bathroom, phoning the phonebox across the road and pretending to be a radio station, stealing matresses from the second floor and putting them on the 5th floor, drinking ridiculous concotions of alcohol/ condiments, watching James Bond films where we had to drink a shot of beer everytime we heard the word 'License to kill' or 'Bond'... That kind of thing.

    Oh and my favourite, the coin of fate. Get in a car... Tails = turn left, heads = turn right... Passenger flicks a coin at every junction. We got on the motorway and ended up driving from leeds to birmingham... OOPS.

    At the time, this seemed like a perfectly natural way to spend our time!

    I tried explaining this to some current uni students in HK. They said "What a waste of time. In HK we don't have time to waste on pointless things like that" and they had absolutely no idea how that could possibly be anything other than disgusting, and most certainly not funny. I felt myself digging a hole as I tried to say how funny it was.

    In all fairness, it was most definitely a waste of time. But very fun at the time... Perhaps I could try and justify it as character/ morale building!?

    Last edited by justjoe86; 22-11-2011 at 11:55 AM.
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