Smiling = Work

From News of the Weird:

"...(S)ome Japanese and Singaporean people find it (difficult) to smile, even when their jobs depend on it, and Chinese people preparing for the 2008 Olympics are having similar problems turning Beijing into a "city of smiles," as the campaign is called. Said one man attending a class on smiling: "At first, I thought (it might be) difficult to smile after you became tired. But later I realized if you don't treat smiling as ... work ... you may find it very easy to smile all the time." (In popular literature in China, people who smile frequently or for no particular reason are often regarded as either silly or devious.) [China Daily, 11-24-06] "