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January 23, 2019

Happiness in China: Family, Fate, and the Good Death

Event Series: "China's New Era" Seminar Series

Becky Yang Hsu speaking to a group

This seminar explored what happiness is in China. In her new book, Happiness in China: Family, Fate, and the Good Death(University of Chicago Press, 2019), Becky Yang Hsu shows how, as people in China make everyday decisions, they organize their deliberations around moral reference points, the most salient involving family obligations. Self-assessments of happiness emphasize carrying out family responsibilities, corresponding roughly to age, even as family structures are changing.

The event was co-sponsored by the Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues and the Walsh School of Foreign Service Asian Studies Program.

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Dr. Becky Yang Hsu is an associate professor of sociology at Georgetown University, where she is also affiliated with the SFS Asian Studies Program and the Initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues. Hsu studies culture and sociology of religion, with an interest in morality.