Every year, the Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation selects a "kanji of the year." This year's is "hen," meaning "change" or, equally, "strange, peculiar."

It will be a long time before the world stops reeling from the strange changes of 2008.

They are in large part the culmination of the George W. Bush presidency in the United States and, in Japan, of the flailing administrations of three consecutive unelected prime ministers whose hapless failure to connect with the public is reflected in the latest support ratings of the current incumbent, Taro Aso. They hover around 20 percent. Coincidentally or not, as the Asahi Shimbun noted earlier this month, that is the same as the percentage of young people who see the economy collapsing around them and tell pollsters they expect to end up homeless.