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Harmony as Happiness? Social Harmony in Two Chinese Societies

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Abstract

This paper reconstructs a concept of harmony in two Chinese societies: Hong Kong and China, by utilizing the measures and empirical data of harmony surveys. The data collected in harmony surveys reveal people’s perceptions of social harmony in the two places. Meta-analysis of the harmony data and the related measures yields the concepts of social harmony in the two places. A reconstructed concept is formed by integrating the extracted ones. A comparison is done between this concept and the notions of wellbeing or happiness of these two societies to identify similarities and differences. It is argued that though semantically not identical, the two concepts share enough overlaps to warrant the view that a suitably developed measure of social harmony, no less than that of happiness, could be used as a comparatively useful measure of the well-being of Chinese societies. This paper may provide a useful conceptual basis for developing such an alternative measure.

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Notes

  1. 1. The 2012 survey was conducted by the Hong Kong Institute of Asia–Pacific Studies, The Chinese University of Hong Kong from February 1 to 10, a sample of 1,002 randomly selected aged 18 or above, interviewed over phone, with successful response rate of 47.91 %, confidence level of 95 %, and 3.10 % error margin. The survey is a part of the Hong Kong Harmony Study Research Project which started biannual surveys in 2006. For details see http://www.cuhk.edu.hk/cpr/pressrelease/100408_2.htm. Another similar survey is organized by the Hong Kong Professional and Senior Executives Association (HKPASEA), 2010 Hong Kong social harmony study report, 2011, March, 22.

  2. 2. The author’s own translation. For an alternative translation, see Legge, Liji, the Chinese Text Project.

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Acknowledgments

A portion of the paper was presented at the Conference on Exploring the Well-being of Cross-strait Chinese societies, funded by a Grant (No. 100G905-15) from the “Project of Promoting Academic Excellence and Developing World Class Research Centers,” of the National Central University in 2011. The conference organized by the Graduate Institute of Philosophy, National Central University, Zhongli, Taiwan on March 3, 2012.

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  1. Graduate Institute of Philosophy, National Central University, Zhongli, Taiwan

    Po-Keung Ip

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Ip, PK. Harmony as Happiness? Social Harmony in Two Chinese Societies. Soc Indic Res 117, 719–741 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11205-013-0395-7

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