Why do Turks smile less than before?

"There is something rotten in the state of Denmark" says Marcellus in the first act of Shakespeare's play Hamlet. Living in Ankara, I can relate to that. 

Gallup's 2017 Global Emotions Report was recently released and I can see an interesting trend. Every year, fewer Turks answer the question "Did you smile or laugh a lot yesterday?" affirmatively. Last year, half of the respondents said they had smiled or laughed on the previous day. This year, it's just 38 percent. 

We could chalk this up to a seasonal issue, or something that has to do with methodology. But let's take it seriously for a moment. What is happening? Why do the Turks smile less and less? What is wrong with us?

Part of it might be about our upbringing. "Don't grin like a Chesire cat" is a Turkish idiom. In fact, the original Turkish version refers not to the cat in Alice in Wonderland but to a "baked head," (pişmiş kelle) as in the baked head of a lamb, which is a delicacy in Turkish cuisine. When baked, the teeth of an animal show, making it look like it's flashing an ugly grin. There is another idiom that roughly means "Be solemn, so they think you're a mullah" (Ağır ol da molla desinler). That's how we were reprimanded while praying in the mosque as children. 

Yet this does not explain the downward trend in the Gallup poll. The cultural aspect, after all, has been with us for centuries, yet the downward trend is recent. The survey provides indices for "positive" and "negative" experiences, and the question about smiling is just one component of the positive experiences index. According to the poll, Turks have recently tended to have fewer positive and more negative experiences lately. 

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