And The Happiest Place On Earth Is.. This segment was originally broadcast on Feb. It was updated on June 1. Happiness is that quirky, elusive emotion that the Declaration of Independence maintains we have every right to pursue. And we do pursue it: we are suckers for an endless stream of self- help books that promise a carefree existence for a mere $2. Nirvana. So the happiness business, at least, is one big smiley face.
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As for the rest of us, as correspondent Morley Safer first reported last winter, the main scientific survey of international happiness carried out by Leicester University in England ranks the U. S. But you'll be pleased to know we beat Iraq and Pakistan. And the winner, once again, is Denmark. Over the past 3. 0 years, in survey after survey, this nation of five and a half million people, the land that produced Hans Christian Andersen, the people who consume herring by the ton, consistently beat the rest of the world in the happiness stakes.
It's hard to figure: the weather is only so- so, they are heavy drinkers and smokers, their neighbors, the Norwegians, are richer, and their other neighbors, the Swedes, are healthier. So it's ironic or something that the unhappiest man in history, or at least literary history, was that Prince of Denmark, Hamlet. Of course Hamlet had every right to be depressed. After all, his uncle murdered his father and seduced and married his mother and was an all around perfect scoundrel.
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But Hamlet aside, what makes a Dane so happy and why isn't he wallowing in misery and self- doubt like so many of the rest of us? That's a question that also intrigued Professor Kaare Christensen at the University of Southern Denmark. Places with nice weather and good food.
But in Europe, they're actually the most unhappy people. Christensen explains. So Christensen and a team of researchers tried to discover just why Denmark finds itself on top of the happiness heap. So we tested different hypotheses. That Denmark made the worst, number 2. I'm pretty sure the Danish television would have said, 'Well, number 2.
You know it's still in the top 2. If you go to the government's own Web site, it proudly proclaims.
Scenes from Vanuatu, the Happiest Place on Earth. Today is the 3. 3rd anniversary of Vanuatu's independence, called by some the happiest place on earth. Back in 2. 00. 9, Ransom Riggs stopped by to see what all the fuss was about.
In 2. 00. 6, the . Determined to find out what all the fuss was about (and having already been to Denmark, 2. Actually, I went there to go scuba diving and watch volcanos spurt lava from unsafe- by- Western- standards distances, and partly because whenever I told people where I was going they would scrunch up their faces and say where?, which pleased me (as if they had already forgotten season 9 of Survivor). But I figured as long as I was there I'd see if I couldn't get to the bottom of this happiness business, and maybe get a little happy myself. Upon arriving on the island of Espiritu Santo (originally dubbed La Austrialia del Esp.
The dusty streets of Luganville, which is the country's second- largest town but little more than a narrow strip of Chinese shops and seafood restaurants, were clogged with hundreds of listless people who seemed to have nothing better to do than squat in whatever patches of shade they could find and stare blankly. High unemployment and general disgruntlement, I thought. Waiting in long lines makes me vaguely disgruntled, too.). Vanuatu's people are poor - - very poor. Many families earn only what their garden- grown vegetables will fetch at market. Going to the market to sell your vegetables is a royal pain - - it means an arduous journey, sometimes with your whole family, from wherever your village is to the main town's market, where you jostle for free space at one of many long, wooden tables to display your wares until they're sold.
This could take days - - and as a result, many markets are open 2. Market at night, Port Vila, Vanuatu.
And then there are the roads. Vanuatu has thousands of miles of roads that crisscross and encircle its 8. That's because there's really no need to tell drivers to slow down, use caution or stop when the enormous potholes that scar Vanuatu's roadways make it impossible to drive more than 1. But in my city we don't go much faster than this anyway because there are too many cars. He looked at me like I had a second head growing out of my neck. When it rains, forget it. The roads turn into brown slush, and the potholes into mires that swallow vehicles whole.
I discovered this the hard way, after my vehicle was swallowed whole in just one such mire. Luckily, people in Vanuatu are exceedingly nice, and actually seem to enjoy watching cars slosh around helplessly in the mud and then jumping in themselves to help push them out. Thanks, guys! OK, so the people are poor. But even though most poor people in Vanuatu don't have any more money than most poor people in, say, India, their poverty is not nearly as grinding.
There are several reasons for this. One is that clean water is readily available: it rains buckets, and there are clean, clear freshwater rivers all over the place.
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You can't go more than a few miles without running into some impossibly beautiful waterfall or cascade. Then there's the volcanic soil - - it's so rich in nutrients that you could drop a candy wrapper on the ground and it would sprout. All manner of fruits and veggies are naturally occurring and easy to grow. Add to that thousands of miles of reef- encrusted shoreline, teeming with colorful and tasty sea life, and you've got the makings of a gourmet meal more or less whenever you want it. I was walking in a village on the (very active) volcanic island of Tanna when a kid showed me two wild rice seedlings he had found; accidentally dropped, that had sprouted on their own: As for the roads, the truth is that it doesn't really matter how bad they are.
No one's in a hurry anyway. Not once did I see anyone in Vanuatu consult a clock or a watch, or run somewhere because they were late, or for that matter run anywhere at all.
It's too hot - - and who cares what time it is? The only appointment many people have each day is at the kava bar at sundown, where they pony up the equivalent of $0. Something like 4. Vanuatans are under the age of 1. Vanuatu, I never met one. They always seem to be laughing and playing, and every single one of them waved and smiled at me as I passed them by. Also, they're all issued razor- sharp machetes from the age of three, and as we all know, machetes are great fun.
Those not armed with razor- sharp machetes are simply swallowed up by creeper vines and never seen again.) Here's a kind- of- graphic picture of a kid I met, holding a machete and a recently hacked- off oxtail, the latter of which was sure to make an appearance on his family's dinner table that night. After independence in 1. British and French and it went from being named the New Hebrides to Vanuatu (literally: for me and you), all land was meant to return to its original owners.
The trouble was, it had been so long since village chiefs in Vanuatu had owned their own land, they often couldn't remember the boundaries of their territory. So for the last three decades, the country has been mired in ceaseless (but usually bloodless) land disputes, and as a result there are lots of places you can't go because it's impossible to know whose permission you need in order to go there. But according to the New Economics Foundation - - the people behind the . As it is, foreigners can't legally own land in Vanuatu - - they can only lease it from the chiefs, for a maximum of 7. Grandmother and child, in a village on the island of Tanna, Vanuatu. Naturally, perhaps, some of the ex- pats living in Vanuatu are a little bitter.
A few that I talked to didn't have many kind words for native Vanuatans, who they characterized as slow, unreliable employees. Then they'll come back just as suddenly and expect to get their jobs back. If they want food, they can just pluck it from the land or the sea. They spend their paychecks as soon as they get them because they don't really need the money.
It makes it very hard to have long- term employees. With no shops and nowhere to stay, they were looked after by local people. One day he came across a young local man who had just returned to the island after studying at Nottingham University. He could have been one of the top earners in Vanuatu if he wanted, but he was contented with his simple life and didn't want anything else. It just sums up what the place is about.! And you can check out more Strange Geographies columns here.