…. this year’s kanji, and all about “smorking”
peterpayne.net Wednesday, December 12, 2007

Every year a single kanji character is designated by the Kanji Examination Association which represents the events of that year, and this year the character is…itsuwari, which translates as falsity, lies or deceit. It was a big year for being lied to in Japan, with many scandals in the headlines.

First, the problems with missing Social Security payments, which meant that thousands of workers wouldn’t get credit for money they paid into the system decades ago. Learning that the freshness date on the food they order may not be accurate also shook the trust of consumers in Japan — McDonald’s got caught changing the dates on salads so leftovers could be sold the following day, and they’d been doing it for years. The scandal at the Ministry of Defense, in which Deputy Defense Minister Yoko Yamada demanded various perks in exchange for the awarding of lucrative contracts, resulted in a raid on the Japanese version of the Pentagon by prosecutors.

Today there was an official ceremony at beautiful Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto in which a famous Buddhist priest wrote the character with a large calligraphy brush while hundreds looked on. The kanji for previous years have included inochi (life) in 2006, during which so many young people committed suicide; ai (love), after the birth of Princess Masako’s daughter Ai in 2005; sai (disaster), in tragedy-laden 2004; and tora (tiger), celebrating the Hanshin Tigers victory in the Japan Series in 2003…more...