Working fewer hours and taking time out of each day to relax and reflect is the key to greater happiness which in turn leads to increased productivity, according to a Buddhist monk and theoretical physicist.

Ajahn Brahm divulged the secrets of a happy life. Photo: Sarah Graham/FCC

And to listen to Ajahn Brahm, it is evident that he is indeed happy. It was at times hard to distinguish the February 28 guest speaker from a stand-up comedian as he cracked jokes throughout the talk, leaving guests in fits of laughter.

Brahm, a graduate of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, where he studied Theoretical Physics, said much of life’s stress could be put down to the pressure many feel in living up to the expectations of others, and themselves. He said many people who committed suicide were perfectionists who could never live up to their perceived expectations.

Locking yourself in a cupboard, creating a ‘time out’ room at your office, or even heading to the rest room – “there’s a reason why it’s called a rest room” – are all ways in which we can reduce the stress of our jobs each day. And the less stressed we are, the greater the chance of higher productivity.

To much laughter from members, Brahm, a Theravada Buddhist monk for over 40 years, quoted “that great American philosopher” Snoopy to drive home his points: “Worrying about the future doesn’t stop the bad things happening, it just stops the good things occurring now.”

Last year, Hong Kong fell three places to 75th out of 156 countries ranked in the World Happiness Report. Not only is it one of the world’s most expensive for housing and living, it tops the list as Asia’s most depressed city with high rates of divorce and suicide.

But Brahm, who has given motivational talks to big corporations including Facebook and Google, said Hongkongers’ lives need not be so busy.

“Half hour of relaxing means you get more work done in the afternoon,” he said. “If you want to be successful in life you don’t have to work long hours – you have to work smart.”

Instead of worrying about the destination, enjoy the journey, Brahm added.

The health benefits of happiness were immense, he said, adding that he believed there was solid evidence that the power of the mind had an effect on cancer. Brahm said he had worked with cancer patients for more than 30 years and believed cancer to be an overreaction of the body to stress.

He recounted how he had once seen a man hypnotised into believing that a four-inch nail on the end of a piece of wood was red hot. When the man touched it, not only did he scream in pain, Brahm said, but a blister formed on his hand.

“If the mind can create damage, it can create healing as well,” he said, adding that mind-based science was under-explored by governments as a way to reduce healthcare costs.

When asked by a member of the audience whether he agreed with a move in the United Arab Emirates to appoint a Minister for Happiness, Brahm said that trying to be happy when we’re not often makes us suffer.

“A minister would put a tax on happiness,” he said.

Women are going to rule the world, predicts a male author and analyst, and it’s largely thanks to empowerment through education.

Author and analyst Surjit S. Bhalla put forward the case that education is the unifying factor behind the decline of poverty and rise of equality. Photo: Sarah Graham/FCC

And what’s more, recent economic growth in developing countries like India and China can also be linked to better education over the expertise of economists, said Surjit S. Bhalla, senior analyst for a New York-based macroeconomic policy advisory firm. Outlining various data sets used in his research, Bhalla put forward the case that education is the unifying factor behind the decline of poverty and rise of equality.

For the first time in its 1,000-year history, Bhalla said, Oxford University has more women undergraduates than men. Women in Saudi Arabia are now allowed to drive cars and watch soccer matches, he added.

“We kill the girl child in India before she is born. That is going to end,” Bhalla said.

These developments have come about as a result of better education opportunities and outcomes in schooling for women – they are no longer expected to stay home and bear children, Bhalla added.

“Now there’s nothing to differentiate in terms of the labour market. This transformation is permanent,” he said.

Bhalla was promoting his latest book, The New Wealth Of Nations, at the February 26 club lunch. The premise of the book is that education increases incomes, creates wealth, reduces inequality and empowers women. To support his arguments, Bhalla used India and China as examples of the East catching up with the West first in terms of education, then as economies.

His book, he said, draws from the works of two well-known economists: Arthur Lewis (“one of the greatest economists of the 20th Century”), who studied patterns in the growth of developing economies after World War Two; and Gary Becker, who studied the effects of education on society. Bhalla applies the findings of both to support his theory of education as a major factor in economic growth.

“Education is the biggest ever transformer and biggest ever developer of growth,” Bhalla said. “The only one factor that the world knows is that education is necessary. I happen to think it’s sufficient.”

China’s massive investment in Israel as a start-up nation comes on the back of a long and sometimes complicated relationship between the two countries, as highlighted in a new book exploring their history.

Mark O’Neill, author of Israel and China: From the Tang Dynasty to Silicon Wadi. Photo: Sarah Graham/FCC

From an early influx during the Tang dynasty (618-907 AD) to a wave of immigration during the Second World War, Jews have played a significant role in the China we know today, said Mark O’Neill, author of Israel and China: From the Tang Dynasty to Silicon Wadi.

Early Jewish settlers found their place in Chinese society as businessmen, civil servants and professionals who were given the same rights as the Chinese. However, despite building synagogues they lost their Jewish character as they assimilated into a Chinese way of life. The majority learned Mandarin and took local wives, losing contact with the outside Jewish world.

Later, more Jews came to China with the opening of trade ports, settling in Shanghai in the mid-19th century. They were largely traders in opium who subsequently used those profits to go into property, manufacturing, finance, public transport and retail, said O’Neill at the February 21 club lunch. One of those descendants was Silas Hardoon, whose property empire still dominates parts of Shanghai today. Another notable business influence in the early 20th Century was Sir Victor Sassoon. He not only made his fortune from property, pumping millions of US dollars into the Chinese economy, but also managed to successfully take his money out of China before the arrival of Mao Zedong and his establishment of the Communist Party of China.

Meanwhile, Harbin – the “Shanghai of the North” – became another destination for Jewish settlers after the opening of the China Eastern Railway in 1903. This time, the Jewish settlers built synagogues, schools, social clubs, hospitals and elderly care homes.

During the Holocaust, between 25,000 and 30,000 Jews arrived in Shanghai, one of the only cities in the world to open its doors to those fleeing the horrors of Hitler’s Nazi Germany. Shortly after, in 1942, the Gestapo representative in Tokyo visited Shanghai to order the Japanese occupiers to implement the Final Solution. However, Japanese forces refused.

Moreover, several Asian diplomats defied their governments to issue visas to Jewish refugees at this time.

The rise of Communism saw many Jews leave China for the United States, Canada, Australia and Israel. Despite declaring in 1949 that it recognised Israel as a Jewish state, during the 1950s and 1960s, China began to support the Arabs and Palestinians. In 1992, China established formal diplomatic relations with Israel.

“China sells many weapons to Israel’s most bitter enemies despite Israel asking it not to,” O’Neill said.

He added that now China “is on the way to becoming the biggest investor in Israel”. O’Neill gave Li Ka-shing as an example. The Hong Kong tycoon made more than US$145 million when it sold Israeli mapping and navigation start-up, Waze, to Google. He further invested US$130 million of those proceeds to Israel’s version of engineering school MIT – Technion – through his venture-capital fund, Horizons Ventures Ltd.

Not being Jewish himself, O’Neill said he relied on Jewish friends to connect him with rabbis, businessmen, entrepreneurs, professors and journalists in Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong and Israel to help write the book.

Born in England and educated at Marlborough and New College, Oxford, O’Neill came to Hong Kong in 1978. He has lived in Asia ever since, working in Taiwan, Japan, China and India, for Reuters, South China Morning Post and many other publications. Since 2006, he has written eight books on Chinese history. The last five, for Joint Publishing, have editions in Chinese and English.

Conflicts affecting countries participating in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) must be addressed at their root causes in order for President Xi Jinping’s much-lauded development strategy to be successful, according to an international crisis mediation lawyer.

Left: Laurence Brahm, founding director of the Himalayan Consensus; and Nicholas Rosellini, UN Resident Coordinator in China. Photo: Sarah Graham/FCC

Keeping the peace through building connectivity; reducing tensions; and mitigating potential conflicts over access to water and other resources; is key to fostering not only trade and financial integration, but cultural understanding across borders, said Laurence Brahm, founding director of the Himalayan Consensus, an environmental think tank dedicated to the prevention of conflict over water resources due to climate disruption.

China’s BRI is a development strategy designed to create the world’s largest platform for economic cooperation between Eurasian countries along the Silk Road Economic Belt and the Maritime Silk Road. The majority of countries along the Belt and Road are emerging and developing countries, like Afghanistan.

Understanding that conflict is not driven by clash of culture and religion but through economic disempowerment and marginalisation of cultural identity is a viewpoint that goes against the current narrative of religion as the cause of crisis, said Brahm. He said the recent establishment of the Silk Rood Dialogues program with the The United Nations Development Program would bring together think tanks from different countries to address conflict prevention, and enhance people-to-people connectivity through the sharing of information related to cultural, social and economic aspects across the Belt and Road participating countries.

In developing countries where there were “economically disempowered kids” joining terrorist groups, technical training and connectivity within communities would give them hope: “Give them something to live for rather than to die for,” Brahm said.

Nicholas Rosellini, UN Resident Coordinator in China, said China’s approach to the BRI wasn’t only trade-focused, adding that there was an opportunity to invest in a way that “can accompany economic rates of return with social rates of return”. He said China state-backed investment could help developing countries that are “fragile and unstable”, where attracting investment is often difficult.

The United Nations Development Program and the Himalayan Consensus recently launched the Silk Road Dialogue program, aimed to enhance people-to-people connectivity and share analysis and information related to cultural, social and economic aspects across the Belt and Road participating countries.