Happiness grows in Japan

strung up on columbian grade coke perhaps?

I would answer your question with another question. Why if Japan is a peacefull and secure country inside, had 32,000 suicides only the past year? That’s much more than people killed in ColOmbia by guerrillas, right-wing paramilitaries, and drug cartels together.
I think it can’t be blamed all to the stress of their jobs and the competitiviness here. I work with Japanese twelve hours a day , and it seems to me that many of them live in fear, bullying and critizicing each other for ridiculous reasons, and they project that also in their relationship with neighbour countries and foreigners, plus the victim attitude. As I’ve just read in one of the comments here “you can’t be happy when you spend all of your energy hating others”. And fearing others I would add.
On the other hand, in many south american countries you can still knock at the door of your neighbour to ask some favour, have a chat, or to say “hey, it’s my birthday, come to my home”. The same with friends and relatives, even if they are not close relatives there’s always a sense of family between them. And most are christian-minded religious people, when something really bad happens they still have hope in God’s help and justice, which psicologically can be a big support. All this counts a lot in your perception of hapiness.

People who like rivers to be uncemented? ^_^