A letter to express this year of Japan

Every year at this time, KANKEN (Chinese character ability test association) publicly solicit idea for one chinese character to express the current year. Then they released it at the ceremony that the Chief priest of Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto write it as This year Kanji(Chinese character). They pick this one for this year. Basically this Kanji(Chinese character) has the meaning of"disaster". Yes we had a big typhoon, earthquarke, big rain. etc,. People in Niigata pref are still living in temporary homes at evacuation center.
The second kanji is 韓. This is the first letter of name of South Korea. Of course this comes from a big Korean drama boom in Japan. The third one is 震 which means shake, this comes from the Nigata Chuetsu earthquark.

Last year 2003, it was 虎 (Tiger). It because the Hansin Tigers got to be Japanese Baseball Championship after an absence of 18 years. And the Democratic party of Japan barked "Manifest!" in the election then they were successful.  Two years ago 2002, it was 帰(Back). Most of all, abduction of Japanese in 1970s and 1980s by North Korea could return to Japan finally, yes FINALLY!. And the Japanese economy seemed to recover the average before the bubble, and many old songs made revival hit in that year. In 2001, it was 戦(war) of course it is because of Iraq war.

Actually for the last 10 years, most Kanji(chinese characters) were not happy one.
1999 was 末(end), because it was the end of 20th century and there was so much bad news we say often "umm It's the end of the world."   1998 was 毒(poison), we had a curry poisoning and insurance fraud case in Wakayama and dioxin contamination became a big issue.

I really hope we can pick nice happy one in next year end. 

Comments

[robert]

perhaps if we just sent the folks at KANKEN some candy and flowers their day might be better and they would pick some of the happier Kanji from the submissions. I think 2005 might be "renewal" or somesuch..does such a character exist?..hmm renewal.. like checking out a book at the library..checking out? hmm if only...all I need is 13 miles of straight track. ;p

[cecile]

yes, i really hope next year would be brighter for everyone. aside from the traffic, i don't really feel its christmas because of all the bad news i see on tv.