Happiness and Wellbeing in the Dai Ethnic Minority in China: Some Observations

Academic literature on happiness in China mostly refers to Han Chinese, the numerically dominant ethnic group comprising about 92 per cent of the population and ignores the country’s ethnic diversity and ethnic minorities. Drawing on my research in the Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture in China’s southwestern Yunnan province, in this chapter I critically examine some of the beliefs and practices and discourses pertaining to happiness and wellbeing in the Dai ethnic minority. From the ways they are constructed within the ebb and flow of daily life, culture, ethnicity, family, religion, and sociality, to the importance of China’s state modernisation paradigm, the chapter shows that happiness and wellbeing are undoubtedly complex. Yet it is this very complexity which ultimately addresses questions such as ‘What is happiness?’. This chapter also serves to highlight some of the limitations of the positive psychology literature, which, in my opinion, is wholly inadequate for appreciating happiness and wellbeing in non-Western cultures.