Vietnam leads Asians in happiness survey
HANOI - They think their country is doing better than most of the world, that their children have a bright future
and are optimistic that life will be better five years from today. Americans ? No, Vietnamese.
Despite decades of war and poverty, residents of this fast-growing, communist-ruled southeast Asian country seem to
be the most upbeat in Asia, according to a survey conducted by the Washington-based Pew Research Center and
published by the International Herald Tribune on Thursday. The survey, which asked six questions relating to happiness and outlook, covered 38,000 people in 44 countries worldwide. In Asia respondents were from Vietnam, South Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Philippines, China, India and
Bangladesh.
Vietnamese gave a satisfaction rating of 69 percent to the state of their nation and 51 percent for the state of the world. In those categories, the Vietnamese figures were the highest or equal-highest for any country in the global survey.
The respondents in the southeast Asian country of 80 million were more muted about the quality of their lives, rating that at 43 percent, but they were still happier in that respect than the people of any other Asian country except South Korea. And they were even more positive about their children.
An overwhelming 98 percent of Vietnam respondents said they expected that children of today in their country would be better off when they grew up. Again, it was the most positive figure among any country surveyed globally.
But that may be unsurprising, given the rapid progress in Vietnam since it abandoned a centrally planned blueprint. The country's economy has been growing by at least seven percent a year, almost as quickly as China's and South Korea's. Annual incomes average $400 per person.
AIDS threat
The results did not surprise a few observers of the country. Sesto Vecchi, an American lawyer in Ho Chi Minh City who has resided for 18 years in Vietnam, said that optimism is especially evident among the younger ones, who did not live through the wars.
"The older people probably have a vastly different experience," Vecchi said. Like many other countries in the world, Vietnamese ranked satisfaction with family lives higher than with either their household incomes or jobs.
Sixty-nine percent of Vietnam respondents expected their lives to be better five years from now, the second highest
rating in Asia, behind Indonesia's 73 percent. Asked to rate the five dangers posing the greatest threat to the world, Vietnam broke away from the pack to pick infectious diseases and AIDS as the number-one threat. Other Asian countries were far more worried about nuclear weapons, religious and ethic hatred, environmental troubles or the gap between rich and poor.
Vietnam's focus was heartening to the U.N. Development Programme chief representative Jordan Ryan, whose agency has been promoting HIV and AIDS prevention and awareness in Vietnam.
"This seems evidence that the information campaign is reaching people," Hanoi-based Ryan said. Vietnamese respondents were least interested in the wealth gap.
The Philippines' biggest fear is nuclear weapons, while the world's most populous Muslim country, Indonesia, selected religious and ethnic hatred as the number-one threat to the world.
By Christina Toh-Pantin - Reuters - December 6, 2002
|