The Differences Between Happiness and Shaase in Japanese

On episode 20 of the Ikgai Podcast, Dr. Iza Kavedžija shares her insights on happiness and Ikigai from the perspective of the elderly in Japan.

Having spent 14 months observing and conversing with her interlocutors, a group of elderly friends who regularly spend time at a community cate Iza come to discover that "Happiness in the Japanese context can usefully be understood as deriving from a series of negotiations or “balancing acts” between contrastive values and orientations to the world."

Interestingly, her interlocutors rarely spoke directly of “happiness”. In Japan, stating such things about oneself could be perceived as bragging, and it is customary in Japan to represent oneself and one’s associates in a modest, self-deprecatory manner.