Never mind its temperate 28°C weather, low unemployment rate and high per-capita GDP: Singapore is the most emotionless society in the world, according to a new Gallup poll, beating the traditionally po-faced Georgia, Lithuania and Russia in a survey of more than 150 nations.
Asking respondents questions such as “Did you feel well-rested yesterday?” “Were you treated with respect all day yesterday?” and “Did you smile or laugh a lot yesterday?” the survey found that Singaporeans were the least likely to reveal experiencing any emotions at all.
Just 36 percent of Singaporeans reported feeling positive or negative emotions on a daily basis, while 60 percent of Filipinos recorded regularly feeling both — the highest response rate of any country worldwide.
“If you measure Singapore by the traditional indicators, they look like one of the best-run countries in the world,” Gallup’s Jon Clifton was quoted as saying in a Bloomberg report on the survey. “But if you look at everything that makes life worth living, they’re not doing so well.”
The poll’s findings — released on Wednesday — soon went viral on the Internet, where they became the butt of many jokes, not least among Singaporeans themselves.
“Singapore ranked most emotionless country in the world — not sure how to feel about that,” a number of Singapore-based tweets said.
“That [poll] is a lie,” one reader commented on the online news portal Today. “I use many emoticons to express how satisfied I am.”
Singapore’s 5.2 million residents work the longest hours in the world, according to the International Labour Organization. However, only 2 percent of the country’s work force describe themselves as engaged by their jobs, according to the Bloomberg report, despite the global average being 11 percent.
“Every culture expresses everything differently,” said Adrianna Tan, a 27-year-old information technology consultant. “[The] European love of siesta, or quality of life, is seen in Asian eyes to be laziness.
In the Philippines — which ranked as the world’s most emotional society, followed by El Salvador and Bahrain — analysts were quick to point out that being emotional does not necessarily equate with being happy.
One reporter at GMA News said that the nation ranked 103rd out of 155 countries in this year’s World Happiness Report — and that its 95 million inhabitants are said to be the most depressed in all of Southeast Asia.
Japan has deployed long-range missiles in a southwestern region near China, the Japanese defense minister said yesterday, at a time when ties with Beijing are at their lowest in recent years. The missiles were installed in Kumamoto in the southern region of Kyushu, as Japan is attempting to shore up its military capacity as China steps up naval activity in the East China Sea. “Standoff defense capabilities enable us to counter the threat of enemy forces attempting to invade our country ... while ensuring the safety of our personnel,” Japanese Minister of Defense Shinjiro Koizumi said. “This is an extremely important initiative for
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) today accepted an invitation from Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to lead a delegation to China next month, saying she hopes to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations and bring stability to the Taiwan Strait. “I am grateful and happy to accept this invitation,” Cheng said in a statement from the KMT chairperson’s office. Cheng said she hopes both sides can work together to promote the peaceful development of cross-strait relations, enhance exchange and cooperation, bring stability to the Taiwan Strait and improve people’s livelihoods. At today's news conference, Cheng said any efforts to
MORE POPULAR: Taiwan Pass sales increased by 59 percent during the first quarter compared with the same period last year, the Tourism Administration said The Tourism Administration yesterday said that it has streamlined the Taiwan Pass, with two versions available for purchase beginning today. The tourism agency has made the pass available to international tourists since 2024, allowing them to access the high-speed rail, Taiwan Railway Corp services, four MRT systems and four Taiwan Tourist Shuttles. Previously, five types of Taiwan Pass were available, but some tourists have said that the offerings were too complicated. The agency said only two types of Taiwan Pass would be available, starting from a three-day pass with the high-speed rail and a three-day pass with Taiwan Railway Corp. The former costs NT$2,800
The nation’s fastest supercomputer, Nano 4 (晶創26), is scheduled to be launched in the third quarter, and would be used to train large language models in finance and national defense sectors, the National Center for High-Performance Computing (NCHC) said. The supercomputer, which would operate at about 86.05 petaflops, is being tested at a new cloud computing center in the Southern Taiwan Science Park in Tainan. The exterior of the server cabinet features chip circuitry patterns overlaid with a map of Taiwan, highlighting the nation’s central position in the semiconductor industry. The center also houses Taiwania 2, Taiwania 3, Forerunner 1 and
RSS