As the first decade of the 21st century drew to a close, the Japanese Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation conducted its 15th annual Kanji of the Year poll, inviting the nation to decide which single kanji best symbolized 2009.
Until the call for votes went out, kanji aficionados had been biting their nails over whether this year's poll would be held — uncertain due to the indictment last May of the nonprofit foundation's former director and his son on charges of incurring huge losses in order to benefit their family businesses. But on Dec. 11, the chief priest of Kiyomizu Temple — apparently satisfied that a revamped foundation would no longer be involved in kanji criminal capers — announced the winner in the usual fashion, in bold strokes on a huge sheet of paper set up at the temple.
A record 161,000 participants voted this year. Some poll watchers had pegged 民 (MIN, citizen) as a shoo-in to win, based on the top domestic news event of 2009: the landslide Lower House victory in late August of the Democratic Party of Japan (民主党, Minshutou, citizen/master/political party) over the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP). But 民 ended up in the No. 7 position, edging out No. 8, 鳩 (hato, pigeon), the first kanji in the family name of the new prime minister, Yukio Hatoyama (鳩山, pigeon/mountain).