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Balloons of Buthan Jonathan Harris

“In Bhutan, happiness is no laughing matter — academics study it, spreadsheets track it, billboards tout it, conferences debate it, and every year, flocks of foreign intellectuals travel to Thimphu to share their ideas about what exactly makes a person happy. Instead of “Gross National Product”, Bhutan uses “Gross National Happiness” to measure its socio-economic prosperity, essentially organizing its national agenda around the basic tenets of Buddhism. Bhutan’s fourth king, Jigme Singe Wangchuck, invented the idea in 1972, to give his tiny country some international clout and guard against potential future invasion by its two mighty neighbors (India and China). Given the seriousness with which this topic is treated, I thought it would be fun to do something a little bit silly, so in late 2007, I traveled to Bhutan and spent two weeks handing out balloons.”