Greater happiness raises expectations

For most people, it is difficult to answer the question, "Are you happy?", especially when facing a video camera or journalist's microphone. Happiness is a hard-to-define subjective feeling with the criteria differing from person to person. Even an unhappy interviewee will feel ashamed or reluctant to air his/her true feelings in public or on camera.

Not surprisingly, many people have challenged the results of China Central Television's serial interviews about people's sense of happiness. The conclusion that most Chinese people are happy just because they said so in front of the camera is far from convincing. In this regard, private questionnaires based on a series of key happiness-related index could elicit more reliable response than TV interviews from the public.

But even if the CCTV survey was not scientific, we cannot deny that an increasing number of people have reason to feel happy today. The CCTV survey, to some extent, reflects social development and the improvement in people's livelihoods.