Kevin McGeary

    A RECENT campaign in China, organized by Carlsberg Chill, to test happiness at bus shelters was harmless, unscientific fun. One of the core assumptions of the campaign was that a smile always signifies true happiness. In June, China Daily described service staff, including air hostesses and hotel receptionists, as practising to smile with a chopstick fixed horizontally between their teeth. This might inspire us journalists (naturally cynical people) to wonder about the authenticity, or lack thereof, of these smiles.

    According to Martin Seligman, author of “Authentic Happiness,” there are two types of smile. The “Duchenne smile” is a genuine smile in which the corners of the mouth turn up and dimples appear around the eyes. The “PanAm smile” (named after the now defunct airline) is inauthentic and used as an expression of politeness rather than inner happiness. Professor Vijay P Sharma recalls a study in which examining the 1960 yearbook of Mills College showed that over the following 30 years, those whose faces had a Duchenne smile in their photographs had happier marriages and a greater sense of well-being than those who simply had a fixed smile.

    The novel “Service With a Smile” was published 50 years ago this year, and the concept remains one of the most distinguishing features of American culture. Psychologist and holocaust survivor Victor Frankl observed that American culture constantly orders its people to be happy. But happiness cannot be pursued or enforced, it must ensue. Frankl’s associate Edith Weisskopf-Joellson expressed a worry that the culture would not only lead to suffering people feeling miserable, but being ashamed of feeling miserable.

    Two American cultural icons exemplify both types of smile. Mickey Mouse the PanAm smile and Bugs Bunny the Duchenne smile. There was a discussion on the American superblog The Daily Dish earlier this year as to why Mickey Mouse is more famous than Bugs Bunny, even though Bugs is clearly more interesting and charismatic. One reader suggested that it is because Mickey is happy and gentle whereas Bugs is cynical and world-weary. But another reader responded with the observation that Mickey’s happiness is merely the happiness of the lobotomized. Bugs however is full of enthusiasm and constantly able to amuse himself, wherever he goes.

    People training themselves to smile is not at its core about happiness but about conforming to an image that is being sold. True happiness does not come as a result of coercing oneself into smiling, but it ensues as a result of living a good life. I prefer to take the viewpoint expressed by Samuel Taylor Coleridge when he said: “Happiness is a hound dog in the sun. We are not here to be happy, but to experience great and wonderful things.” I think that is one point on which the 18th-century poet and the cartoon rabbit would agree.

    (The author is a Shenzhen Daily senior copy editor and writer.)