The World Database of Happiness shows that income distribution doesn’t predict happiness. More money leads to comfort, rising expectations, and the ability to solve a problem immediately, but not happiness. In fact, $15,000 a year can buy happiness, but anything more does little to increase it.
Weiner journeys to small, isolated Bhutan, where people eschew productivity — it was the last country to get television, in 1999. Entering Bhutan requires extra effort — every visitor must go through a tour company and trek with a guide. Bhutan has a Gross National Happiness, which measures the country’s “human betterment,” rather than numbers.
Qatar, another tiny nation, is ephemeral and gaseous, literally: the third largest natural gas reserve lies underneath its sand. Weiner stays at the Four Seasons Hotel — an indicator that Qatari culture is elusive. Since most residents are Nepalese, Indian, and Filipino servants, he can’t find Qataris to interview. The country, which is 98 percent desert, has an air-conditioned airport terminal that “real” Qataris — members of one large royal tribe — pass through. Here, happiness is illusory — its whole desert a mirage for the nouveau riche — and its nomadic, westernized citizens are plagued with “lottery winner syndrome.” Qatar, saturated with wealth, has no past.
In Iceland, where darkness and nature are overpowering, Weiner wonders why people are so happy. They drink excessively, which helps, but also have a high tolerance for idiosyncrasy and failure. Artists are eccentric, yet happy, and people know of their insignificance within the matrix of life. The Swiss, generally an uptight and boring lot, are similar: they value their mountainous landscape, and avoid talking about money or becoming jealous of others.
His search in Thailand, the land of “sexpats” and ambiguous smiles, barely scrapes the surface and I was disappointed that he failed to peel back its layers. Thailand, like India, is so complex, yet his examination of India evokes its spiritual energy, probably because he once lived there.
Lastly, he uses Miami as a prototype for paradise in his assessment of the U.S., which was a turnoff. My idea of a utopia doesn’t include beaches and bikinis, I suppose. But “utopia” translates to “good place” and “nowhere,” so maybe such a location doesn’t exist.
This is atypical travel writing from someone who refuses to romanticize faraway cultures, yet manages to find beauty and Zen in unexpected places. While Weiner discovers nothing new, he gathers surprising and amusing cultural minutiae — tidbits you can use at cocktail parties to emit the illusion you’re more traveled than you really are.
Visit www.ericweinerbooks.com to read more about this nirvana-seeking journey.
© Cheri Lucas