Every year in December a Chinese character is selected through national vote to represent the social mood of the year. With 20,858 votes out of a total of 193,214, the highest number for 2018 kanji of the year was for wazawai or sai, meaning “disaster!”
To be sure, natural disasters were widespread in Japan this year.
• In the July rainy season, flood waters swept through the country prompting the evacuation of nearly nine million people in 23 prefectures and killing close to 200.
• Also in July, a heatwave hospitalized over 22,000 people, killing 65. One of the top ten buzzwords this year on social media in Japan was "disaster grade heatwave". Temperature hit 106F (41.1C), the highest ever recorded in Japan.
• On September 4, the island of Shikoku and the Kansai region of Japan was hit by the strongest typhoon in 25 years with winds up to 107 mph (172km/h). Nine people died and 200 were injured, but damage was severe. Osaka International Airport runways were flooded, closing the airport, and 177,000 customers across western Japan lost power.
• On September 6, Landslides were triggered in Hokkaido by a 6.7 magnitude earthquake, killing 39 and sending 16,600 to shelters.
Natural disasters weren’t the only tragedies. There were massive thefts of cryptocurrency, shameful power harassment in sports, a political scandal when Finance Ministry bureaucrats tampered with official documents, and the discovery that entrance exam scores had been rigged to discriminate against female applicants at medical universities.
In an end of the year event, the character was revealed when the chief priest at the historic Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto wrote the character with a giant calligraphy brush.
Living in the U.S., many would concur that “disaster” sums up 2018. Here’s to a less volatile 2019!
