China's top officials regularly debate how to create prosperity. Guangdong Communist Party chief Wang Yang wants to go them one better. He says he wants to create a 'happy' society as well.
中国的高层官员常常围绕如何实现国家的繁荣展开讨论。广东省委书记汪洋则想比他们更胜一筹。他说自己还希望构建一个"幸福"社会。Mr. Wang, in written responses to an email interview last year, is pretty clear about what happiness isn't. 'Facts show that people don't necessarily feel happy when they have material wealth,' he says.
记者去年曾通过电子邮件对汪洋进行过采访，他在书面回复中对幸福不是什么给出了明确的回答。他说，事实表明，人们拥有物质财富不一定感觉幸福。He's a lot more obscure when he tries to define what happiness is. 'Different people from different cultures have different understandings of what happiness is,' he says. 'But people in the same region share an understanding of whether they are happy or not. That is something we ought to pursue. It is a type of lifestyle and feeling we can enjoy and build together.'
但他在试图界定何为幸福时措辞则要含糊得多。他说，来自不同文化的人对幸福的理解是不同的，但同一地区的人对他们幸福与否则会有同样的看法，幸福是我们应该追求的，它是我们能够相互分享、共同建立的一种生活方式和感觉。
In Guangzhou, the capital of Guangdong, provincial officials have tried to make concrete Mr. Wang's concepts. They have constructed a happiness index. They survey residents about how well they think the government is delivering on a variety of issues, including employment, education, culture, social insurance, consumption, environment and protection of rights.
在广东省省会广州市，省级官员们一直在努力给汪洋提出的幸福概念赋予具体的含义。他们推出了一个幸福指数。政府官员调查了居民对政府在各个方面表现的满意度，包括就业、教育、文化、社会保险、消费、环境和公民权利保护情况。For unexplained reasons, the initial survey results, released on Valentine's Day this year, reported results from 2010 and 2009-nothing more recent. The Guangdong government didn't say how many residents were questioned or how such surveys were carried out.
出于不明原因，今年2月14日情人节那天公布的首批调查结果仅包括2009年和2010年的情况，而没有更近年份的结果。广东省政府没有说明受访者有多少，也未说明调查是如何进行的。Given that Guangdong was suffering from the global financial crisis in 2009, some boost in happiness the following year could be expected, and indeed there was a bump, but just a little one.
鉴于2009年广东省正遭受全球金融危机的冲击，可以预计次年幸福指数会出现一定程度的上升，而2010年的幸福指数也确实提高了，但提高的幅度很小。Overall happiness increased to 72.83 (out of a possible 100) in the Pearl River Delta in 2010, an area that includes Guangdong's wealthiest cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen, up from 70.22 in 2009. The saddest city surveyed was Zhaoqing, known for its 800-year-old city walls. It had a ranking of 66.69 in 2010, an increase from 64.41 the year before.
2010年，珠江三角洲的总体幸福指数上升至72.83（满分为100），较2009年的70.22有所提高。广东省最富裕的城市广州和深圳都位于珠三角。珠三角地区受访城市中幸福指数最低的是肇庆市，这座城市以其有800年历史的城 而闻名遐迩。2010年，肇庆市幸福指数为66.69，2009年为64.41。Looking at the individual components of happiness, Guangdong residents felt best about the protection of their rights, according to the survey. (The official results didn't say whether respondents were provided some form of anonymity when answering questions.) They felt least satisfied with the province's social services and public infrastructure.
调查显示，在构成幸福指数的单项指标方面，广东居民对公民权利保护情况感到最满意。(官方在公布调查结果时没有说明受访者在回答问题时是否获准使用一定形式的匿名。)他们对广东省社会服务和公共基础设施最不满意。As to Mr. Wang's belief that money doesn't buy happiness, the survey shows mixed results. Guangzhou and Shenzhen, the two richest cities, were No. 1 and No. 3 on overall happiness in 2010. But another wealthy city, Maoming, was dead last in terms of happiness. And Meizhou, the poorest of the cities surveyed, ranked near the top.
而对于汪洋认为的金钱买不来幸福这一观点，调查结果既未证实也未能推翻。2010年，广东省最富裕的两个城市广州和深圳的整体幸福指数分别排在第一和第三位。但另外一个富裕城市茂名的幸福指数却排在倒数第一。而梅州市虽然是各受访城市中最穷的，但其排名却很靠前。What does it all mean?
这一切意味着什么？One Guangdong official said the survey results are combined with more traditional data, such as increases in income, when plotting policy. 'We're trying to get better at helping ordinary people,' he said.
广东省的一位官员说，在制定政策时，决策者会将调查结果和居民收入增加值等更传统的数据综合起来考虑。他说，我们努力在帮助普通百姓方面做得更好。There is also a political dimension. The results are posted on billboards around the province. 'If the leader's city is last on the list, he'll be under pressure to do more,' the official said.
此外，调查结果还有其政治意义。调查结果通常公布在全省各地的公告栏中。上述官员说，如果哪座城市的排名落在最后，这座城市的领导人会迫于压力而改进自己的工作。