Recently, Mr Salty’s Facebook feed was bombarded with news articles carrying the headline “China Angered After Germany…” (see sample article here) and a thought flashed across my mind: Seems like China has been rather angry for the few past years, with various news reporting how China was angry at Canada, USA, Japan, South Korea etc. Even Fiji, the small, remote island nation in Pacific Ocean, managed to trigger China. It was as though China needs to sign up for an anger management course.
Since salty is in my domain, I ran through a check to find out just how angry the world is (at least in the eyes of God Google). Surely China isn’t the only salty potty in this world, right?
China Angered
Starting the list is of course China. Slightly over 6 million search results turned up for the search term “China angered”.
Of course, as I found out later, this search term does not necessarily mean China was the Angerer. As apparent from one of my search results for “Thailand angered”, the headline “Brit Tourists in Thailand Angered…”, in which Thailand was the Angeree, also appeared in the search.
Therefore, I changed my search focus from “How often is X angered?” to “How often is X involved in an angry situation?”, since maintaining good relationships meant not to provoke as well as be provoked.
USA Angered
When we talk about China, the next country that comes to mind is USA! This is a bit tricky, as USA is also referred to as America or “the States” in many news outlets. There’s a high risk of double counting, as well as false positives, since “South America” will also turn up for results for “America”. Therefore, I stuck to “USA” for a cleaner presentation.
And guess what? USA was angry 8 million times. Considering just how badly Trump wants USA to win in every situation, this should be a good news for him.
Speaking of USA, how can we miss out dear UK, who is also embroiled in a messy political situation that had made famous a term that didn’t exist just 3 years ago? – Brexit.
Unfortunately, UK has an even messier habit of labeling itself as UK, Britain, England, British Empire etc than USA. For that, Mr Salty gave up searching on UK.
Russia Angered
What other country should we search for, other than the one that has a complicated 3-way relationship with USA and China? Russia! As it turned out, Russia’s political temperament is as cold as its climate. Or perhaps its anger was all expressed in Russian. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
India Angered
Another country constantly at loggerheads with China is India. As it turned out, India is less angry than China, at 5.5 million search results. This is funny, considering China is always poking India via Pakistan.
One thing I could infer from the top results, though, was that India doesn’t really fancy flying. Perhaps that was the reason why the aviation industry has been struggling to take off…
Germany Angered
The other country that inspired this post is Germany. Germans are known to be angry. They sound angry. The look angry. Eh… they were so angry they started 2 world wars. Well, surprise! They were only half as angry as China. Mr Salty thinks Germany is a worthy leader of the EU, what with its emotional intelligence!
Japan Angered
Since we’re on the topic of world wars, let’s look at Japan, shall we? Japan in the last few decades has been viewed as a docile, peace loving country. I mean, Japan brought us Super Mario Bros, Hello Kitty and Pikachu! Which other country brings as as much joy as Japan?
Does Google hang on to Japan’s angry past? Apparently, Japan is slightly angrier than Germany. This seems weird. Perhaps Japan’s anger simmers like a slow-boiled miso soup. I wonder if being situated on the Ring of Fire played a part?
Australia and Canada Angered
To find out if the Ring of Fire plays a part, I looked at Canada and Australia, who are big economies in their own rights. I mean, Canadians are known to be profuse apologisers, eh? Surely Canada can’t be that angry?
Both turned out around 4 million searches, though the Aussies are less likely to erupt than Canada. In fact, Russia, whose eastern border also lies on the Ring of Fire, fares about the same. By Mr Salty’s twisted logic, the Ring of Fire has a strong correlation to a country’s anger!
Switzerland Angered
As a form of control, I threw Switzerland into the mix. Switzerland is so peace loving that she stayed neutral in both world wars. As it turned out, they lived up to their names with less than a million searches!
No we know where to go when we feel like unwinding!
Singapore Angered
Last but not least, Mr Salty tested his own hometown. A country that gave birth to a salty man can’t be any less salty. I mean, it takes a super concentrated solution to crystalise salts, ya? True enough, cramping 6 million people onto a 700 sqKm rock makes them half as angry as a Russian. In fact, the only other Southeast Asian country angrier than Singapore is Vietnam. And guess who they were most recently angry with?
Dear Singapore.
As a comparison, Singapore is also as angry as South Korea and Pakistan. Looks like the threat of conflicts makes countries equally angry.
When I looked through the search results, they showed that most of Singapore’s anger is internal – Singaporeans are angry at Singaporeans. This little red dot looks set to become a big fat pimple waiting to burst.
But what worried Mr Salty most was the highlighted results at the top. Just so you know, Google gathers the search sentiments of the world and places them at the top in the form of FAQs for related search terms. When you search Google about Singapore, it returns you answers to possible questions you may have.
Based on the top 4 questions showed, it was as though the world didn’t consider Singapore as an independent country.
Really, Singaporeans. You got to stop the infighting and start addressing the real threats on the global stage!
That’s all for Mr Salty’s not-so-scientific index of how angry the world is by notable countries. To end on a positive note, hate less, love more. Let’s focus our saltiness on food, rather than on each other!
Disclaimer: Much angry as you may be after seeing your country being featured as a salty potty, remember this is a post made entirely out of fun. There is no research integrity involved in the searches. i.e the results shown were based on observation through a single lens. If you really take it seriously, Mr Salty recommends that you follow this blog to train yourself to take life with a pinch a salt. After all, being salty all the time leads to high blood pressure, which leads to early death. That, dear salt lovers, is backed by medical research.