Laughter is no joke in one region of Japan, where citizens have been ordered by law to giggle at least once a day for the sake of their health.
The local government in Japan’s Yamagata prefecture has just passed an ordinance calling on residents to laugh at least once every day to promote better physical and mental health, although the new law has gone down like a bad joke in some quarters.
Put forward by members of the normally strait-laced Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) and passed on Friday, the ordinance encourages local residents to snigger, chortle or guffaw daily and asks business operators to “develop a workplace environment that is filled with laughter,” the Yomiuri newspaper reported.
The eighth day of every month has also been designated as the day for “residents to promote health through laughter”.
The initiative is a result of ongoing research into laughter at Yamagata University’s Faculty of Medicine. Studies at the university have linked laughter to better health and increased longevity.
In an article published in the Journal of Epidemiology in 2020, for example, scientists at the university studied 17,152 subjects over the age of 40 and determined that “all-cause mortality and cardiovascular disease incidence were significantly higher among subjects with a low frequency of laughter.”
The study also pointed to other research that has established a link between laughter and life enjoyment, positive psychological attitudes and elevated levels of competence, trust, openness and conscientiousness.
The new legislation has not been universally welcomed, however, with members of both the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) and the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan (CDPJ) voting against the proposal.
Toru Seki of the JCP complained that, “To laugh or not to laugh is one of the fundamental human rights that are guaranteed by the constitution regarding freedom of thought and creed, as well as inner freedom.”
“We must not undermine the human rights of those who have difficulties laughing due to illness or other reasons,” said CDPJ member Satoru Ishiguro.
The LDP majority hit back at the moaners, with the Yomiuri quoting Kaori Ito as saying, “The ordinance does not force people to laugh. It also emphasises the respect for an individual’s personal decision.”
The local authority has also made it clear that the ordinance has no penalty clause for anyone who is unable to raise at least one laugh a day.
While the laughing law may seem bizarre, Japan has many regulations that foreigners might find unusual. For example, damaging currency is a crime punishable with up to one year in prison, while insurance companies are not legally obliged to pay out if someone dies in a duel. Taking out the household rubbish on the wrong day of the week can also incur fines.
Japan’s also famously had an anti-dancing law, dating back to 1948, which prohibited any form of dancing in many nightclubs and bars. However, after a long legal battle, the notorious ban was lifted in 2014, allowing dance music lovers to groove freely once again.