In Bhutan, Happiness Index as Gauge for Social Ills
不丹 用幸福指數測量社會良窳
By Kai Schultz

As a downpour settled into a thick fog outside, Dasho Karma Ura let his eyes flicker at the ceiling of a wood-paneled conference room and began expounding on the nature of happiness.
屋外的傾盆大雨轉為濃霧，達修．卡瑪．烏拉向鑲了木板的會議室的天花板瞥了一眼，開始闡述幸福的本質。

“People feel happy when they see something ethical,” he said. “When you think you have done something right and brave and courageous, when you can constantly recharge yourself as a meaningful actor.”
他說：「當人們看到某件合乎道德的事時，幸福感油然而生。還有當你認為你做對了某件事，而且勇敢和勇氣可嘉時，當你可以持續不斷自我充實，成為有意義的行動者時。」

“And lastly,” he added, thumbing Buddhist prayer beads, “something which makes you pause and think, ‘Ah, this is beautiful. Beautiful, meaningful, ethical.’ ”
他撥著佛教念珠，接著說：「最後，某件事讓你停下來想，喔，好美。美麗、有意義、合乎道德。」

Ura, 55, is perhaps one of the world’s leading experts on happiness, at least as seen through the lens of development economics. It has been something of a preoccupation for more than two decades as he has developed and fine-tuned Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness indicator, a supplementary, sometimes alternative, yardstick to the conventional measure of development, gross domestic product.
55歲的烏拉也許是世上最頂尖的幸福問題專家之一，至少從發展經濟學的眼光來看是如此。20多年來他全心投入，致力發展並仔細修訂不丹的國民幸福總值指數，作為傳統上用來測量發展的國內生產毛額指數的補充或替代標準。

As the president of the Center for Bhutan Studies and GNH Research, Ura has spent much of his time asking Bhutanese questions about interactions with neighbors, quality of sleep and physical vigor in an attempt to understand and measure subjective well-being. Over the years, he has watched the idea catch on far beyond Bhutan, a remote kingdom in the Himalayas.
身為「不丹研究與幸福指數研究中心」主席，他花費許多時間來問不丹國民一些問題，包括與鄰居的互動，睡眠品質，以及體力，試圖了解和測量他們的主觀幸福感。多年來，他觀察到這個想法已在不丹這個喜馬拉雅山區偏遠王國之外流行起來。

When Denmark repeatedly came in first on the World Happiness Report, which looks at the science of measuring quality of life, more people became aware of both the report, and the concept behind it.
隨著丹麥一再在世界幸福報告上名列第一，也讓更多人注意到這項報告和它所秉持的觀念。這項報告檢視測量生活品質的科學。

As nations struggle with what Ura called more “guns, bullets and bombs” than at any other time in history, he said it was imperative that many more countries devise indicators that look beyond economics.
當各國努力與烏拉所謂多過既往任何時代的「槍、子彈和炸彈」奮戰時，他說，勢必會有更多國家設計出放眼於經濟之外的指數。

“We have to find new ways of organizing our drives and energies toward peace and harmony,” he said. “We have to sincerely find a way out of it, out of this mutual insecurity. Because you have more guns, I have to have a little more guns. The long-term collapse is facing us.”
他說：「我們必須找出新方法來組織我們邁向和平與和諧的動力與精力。我們必須真誠的找出擺脫之道，擺脫這種相互不安全感。因為你的槍比較多，所以我必須比你更多一些。我們面臨長期的崩潰。」

While Gross National Happiness has become a political tool around election time, Ura believes the index has drawn greater attention to social problems. And the results appear to be positive, he said.
雖然國民幸福總值指數在選舉期間變成了政治工具，但烏拉認為這個指數讓人們更加注意社會問題。他說，結果顯然是正面的。

In 2015, his staff members released a study that showed 91.2 percent of Bhutanese reporting that they were narrowly, extensively or deeply happy, with a 1.8 percent increase in aggregate happiness between 2010 and 2015.
在2015年，他的屬下公布了一項研究結果，顯示有91.2%的不丹人表示他們略感幸福、很幸福和非常幸福，比2010年到2015年間的總體幸福增加1.8個百分比。

Those who were educated and lived in urban areas reported higher levels of contentment than their rural counterparts. Men reported feeling happier than women.
受過教育和住在都會區的人的滿意度比住在鄉村的人高。男人比女人感到更幸福。

原文參照：
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/17/world/asia/bhutan-gross-national-happiness-indicator-.html

2017-03-05．聯合報．D4．紐約時報賞析 田思怡

說文解字看新聞 田思怡

不丹第四位國王吉格梅．辛格．旺楚克在1972年創造「國民幸福總值」（Gross National Happiness）一詞，他當時宣布，國民幸福總值比國民生產毛額（Gross National Product，簡稱GNP）重要。之後不丹發展出「國民幸福總值指數」（GNH Index），簡稱為幸福指數，其概念為不應該單以經濟來衡量一個國家的發展。

不丹的幸福指數經過不斷修正，文中幸福問題專家烏拉帶領的研究機構2012年修訂出最新版本，列有8個衡量幸福的標準，包括身心靈上的健康（physical, mental and spiritual health）、時間均衡（time-balance）、社交和社區活力（social and community vitality）、文化活力（cultural vitality）、教育（education）、生活水準（living standards）、良好的治理（good governance）和生態活力（ecological vitality）。

Obesity Rising, Pacific Islands Give Up Junk Food
抗肥！萬那杜托爾巴省 禁垃圾食物
By Mike Ives

Cookies and sugary drinks served at government meetings are about to go away. So are imported noodles and canned fish served in tourist bungalows.
政府開會時提供的餅乾與含糖飲料即將消失，遊客度假小屋內所提供的進口麵條跟魚罐頭亦然。

Taking their place? Local coconuts, lobsters and lime juice.
取而代之的則是當地的椰子、龍蝦與萊姆汁。

While many governments struggle to ban soda to curb obesity, the tiny Torba Tourism Council in the remote Pacific island nation of Vanuatu is planning to outlaw all imported food at government functions and tourist establishments across the province’s 13 inhabited islands.
雖然有許多政府努力禁售蘇打飲料以遏制肥胖，但在遙遠的太平洋島國萬那杜，規模極小的托爾巴省旅遊局卻打算宣布，全省13座有人島嶼上的政府部門和旅遊設施都不得出現任何進口食品。

Provincial leaders hope to turn them into havens of local organic food. The ban, set to take effect in March, comes as many Pacific island nations struggle with an obesity crisis brought on in part by the overconsumption of imported junk food.
省領導人希望將這些島嶼變成當地有機食品的理想去處，這項禁令定3月生效，也正是許多太平洋島國努力應付肥胖危機之際，而過度消費進口垃圾食品是造成這危機的部分原因。

“We want to ban all other junk food from this province,” Luke Dini, the council’s chairman and a retired Anglican priest, said in a telephone interview from Torba. He said the province had about 9,000 residents and got fewer than 1,000 tourists per year, mostly Europeans.
聖公會退休牧師、現任托爾巴旅遊局局長盧克．迪尼在托爾巴省接受電訪時說：「我們想在這個省禁絕所有其他垃圾食品。」他表示，該省大約有9000居民，每年觀光客不到1000人，大部分是歐洲人。

Dini said the pending ban was an effort to promote local agriculture and a response to an increase in diabetes and other diseases that council members have observed in Vanuatu’s capital, Port-Vila. Passing a more comprehensive ban on junk food imports to Torba could take at least two years, he added, and a final decision on which products to ban would be made by the national government.
迪尼表示，這項即將實施的禁令是為了促進當地農業，並且對該局成員在萬那杜首都維拉港所觀察到的現象，亦即糖尿病與其他疾病病例的增加做出回應。他還說，針對垃圾食品輸入托爾巴省通過一項更全面的禁令，恐須至少花上2年時間，而最終要禁哪些產品則將由中央政府決定。

Public health experts who study the island nations of the Pacific islands welcomed the ban, saying that bold measures were necessary for an impoverished and isolated region of 10 million people – one where the cost of sending legions of patients abroad for dialysis treatment or kidney transplants is untenable.
研究萬那杜的公衛專家對這項禁令表示歡迎，表示此一大膽措施對一個有1000萬人口的貧困孤立地區是必要的，因為將許多病人送到國外去做透析治療（洗腎）或換腎，成本是無法承受的。

“Imagine if 75 million Americans had diabetes – that’s the scale of the epidemic we’re talking about in Vanuatu,” Roger Magnusson, a professor of health law and governance at Sydney Law School in Australia, said in an email.
澳洲雪梨法學院衛生法律與治理教授羅傑．麥格努森在電子郵件中說：「想像一下若有7500萬美國人患有糖尿病，而這就是我們在萬那杜所討論的流行病規模。」

“Can anyone seriously say that Vanuatu doesn’t have the right to exercise its health sovereignty in every way possible to protect its population from an epidemic of that scale?” he added.
他補充：「誰能嚴肅表示萬那杜無權用所有可能方式行使其衛生主權，來保護人民免受這種規模的流行病之苦？」

Experts say the region’s health crisis is primarily driven by a decades-long shift from traditional diets based on root crops toward ones that are high in sugar, refined starch and processed foods.
專家表示，該地區出現健康危機主要是因為，數十年來飲食習慣從傳統上以根莖作物為主，轉向糖分、精製澱粉含量高的食物及加工食品。

原文參照：
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/19/world/asia/junk-food-ban-vanuatu.html

2017-03-05．聯合報．D4．紐約時報賞析 陳韋廷