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The character received the highest number of votes among over 90,000 submissions in a contest conducted by a Kanji-promotion association. The characters for "food," "lie" and "suspicion" were among other top choices.
Mori Seihan, chief monk of the Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto, drew the Kanji character in a superb work of calligraphy in one stroke, using a sweeper-sized brush in front of hundreds of worshippers and spectators. "As a Japanese, I am really sorry and angry," he told the crowd, because selection of the Kanji showed "the deplorable social trend where people tend to feel justified even in deceiving others for the sake of their own profits."
In better years, the Japanese would not easily succumb to such a cynical conclusion of the year. They tend to select positive characters like "love" or "trust." Last year's choice was "life," following the much-celebrated birth of a baby boy to the Imperial Household.
But their goodwill was apparently overwhelmed this year by continuous disclosures of industrial betrayals with deliberate, some of them criminal, falsification of construction data, product labels and food ingredients.
The whole nation was horrified to learn that a certified architect had fabricated data on buildings' structural strength -- very vital information in a nation of daily earthquakes -- involving a dozen residential complexes and hotels. All of the structures had to be either reinforced or rebuilt and the architect was arrested.
More than a dozen food makers, including some of the most cherished brands, were found to have falsified their products' expiry dates, mixed in materials that had expired or reused ingredients removed from unsold products.
Scenes of company executives apologizing on national television grew familiar. Most of those firms were obliged to suspend their operations temporarily, either to introduce serious reforms or to allow a lapse of time to rejuvenate public trust.
A meat manufacturer of beef croquettes, ironically named Meat Hope, admitted the company had mixed pork and poultry meat into the product for years. Its founding president was arrested.
It may be a matter of debate how valid "expiry dates" actually are, since there has been virtually no reported case of ill affects to the health of those who consumed products after their legally designated expiry dates. Nonetheless, falsification is a major betrayal of public trust, especially when food safety is concerned. Mothers are particularly furious.
Some of the manufacturers who admitted deliberate falsification in one way or another are managed by their founding families and their kin. Apparently family ties, traditionally considered positive in businesses to allow them to maintain a specific trade or craft, turned into a negative factor in that they facilitated falsification.
Fresh in people's minds, the most recent case relates to the highly-reputed restaurant brand "Kiccho." One of its family-owned chain firms admitted executive liability in falsifying labels on two dozen items with regard to expiry dates or place of origin. The admission came only after obvious attempts to deflect responsibility, first to part-time workers, then to middle executives.
Though the brand, and its prices, belong to a relatively well-to-do layer of society, the abrupt collapse of the name and image of one such highly-reputed brand has left a lingering sense of shock and embarrassment in the nation.
Companies have shown themselves to be true to their pursuit of corporate interests and profits but grossly false to the public good. In any case, for these firms, their moment of truth is just the beginning.
