The Off Topic Topic

[Eddie Teach]

I don't think money buys happiness.

[Syt]

I don't think money buys happiness.

The report ranks countries on six key variables that support well-being: income, freedom, trust, healthy life expectancy, social support and generosity.
"The top 10 countries tend to rank high in all six variables, as well as emotional measures of well-being," says report co-editor John Helliwell, a professor emeritus of economics at the University of British Columbia.

[derspiess]

Doesn't Finland have kind of a high suicide rate?

[Syt]

Doesn't Finland have kind of a high suicide rate?

It's been dropping.

[celedhring]

Mmmm that's quite the disparity in women/men suicide ratio in China compared to pretty much everybody else (except Pakistan, but I kinda can understand the reasons there...). Anyone knows why?

[Duque de Bragança]

Sweden is a Bergman movie.

Psychological drama (not very happy at all) or early allegorical Bergman period?

[grumbler]

Mmmm that's quite the disparity in women/men suicide ratio in China compared to pretty much everybody else (except Pakistan, but I kinda can understand the reasons there...). Anyone knows why?

At a guess, it would be the hardship of growing up knowing that the woman, as an only child, robbed her parents of their chance to have a son.  How could her parents truly love such a selfish child?

[Monoriu]

Mmmm that's quite the disparity in women/men suicide ratio in China compared to pretty much everybody else (except Pakistan, but I kinda can understand the reasons there...). Anyone knows why?

Not entirely sure.  Chinese culture does not glorify or encourage suicide, unlike, say Japan where it is seen as an act of making amends or taking responsibility.  So one way to look at it is that the suicide rate for Chinese males is low.  You off yourself, that means you are abandoning your responsibilities to your family, especially to one's parents.  Generally, sons are their parents' retirement insurance, so they can't kill themselves.  But daughters generally don't have this responsibility, so they have one less disincentive to kill themselves. 

Rural China is a different world.  Young women are often "married into" another family, sometimes in arranged marriages.  Many of these women are also expected to find factory employment in coastal provinces.  If they stay in the countryside, the strain of staying in a new family and the inevitable conflicts with the mother-in-law can be stressful.  If they work in the urban centres, that means they really only see their children and husbands once a year (Chinese new year).  The horrors of the wife and mother-in-law conflicts cannot be underestimated, and I do speak from personal experience 

Basically, young wives have two things working against them.  Traditional Chinese culture emphasises both filial piety and female subordination.  So the young wife has basically the lowest social status among adults in a big family. 

[Valmy]

What the hell is up with Russian men?

[Admiral Yi]

What the hell is up with Russian men?

Booze

[DGuller]

What the hell is up with Russian men?

My guess is that this is due to Russian culture being very ruthlessly traditional.  On the one hand it's clearly male-dominated and highly misogynistic, but on the other hand men can't ever show themselves to be weak to other men.  That must take a toll on mental health, whether you're the alpha male who constantly proves his dominance, or the beta male who's scorned.  And if you do have issues with mental health, you have to deal with them like a man, not that you'd be much better off with Russian psychiatrists.

[Monoriu]

Yeah, I am still surprised by the different attitudes to mental health between the West and China/Hong Kong.  Here, the job of psychologists is to identify risks to society and lock those people up before they go on a rampage.  You are either crazy, in which case you deserve to be locked up, or you are normal.  And if you are normal, then you cannot suffer from conditions like depression.  Because if you are depressed, then you are crazy and need to be locked up.  If that's not true, then you are normal you need to sort out your issues yourself. 

[Josquius]

 That's the way it is here too.
Which some people are trying to change as it means people are afraid to see doctors about these conditions and get treatment whilst it's still manageable, meaning they're more likely to blow up in a bad way.

[Eddie Teach]

I don't know about Blighty, but in the US lots of people see therapists without worrying about being locked up.

[celedhring]

I don't know about Blighty, but in the US lots of people see therapists without worrying about being locked up.

Yeah, in NYC my friends quite openly spoke about seeing therapists and such, while back home I'd say it's something people wouldn't talk too openly about.