Golden glow for Japan's kanji pick

TOKYO - The Japanese kanji for kin, meaning gold, was voted character of the year on Monday in honor of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which were delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kanji is the term for Chinese characters in the Japanese language.

Japan won a record 27 gold medals at the Tokyo Games, including three of the four first-ever skateboarding victories. Gymnastics star Daiki Hashimoto and judo siblings Uta and Hifumi Abe were among the champions.

"The Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics became bright news, a ray of light for a society that had been in the dark, suffering from the coronavirus pandemic for a long time," said the vote's organizers.

Public sentiment toward the Olympics has not always been celebratory, with media polls before the event showing low public support for going ahead with the Games this summer.

Japanese TV stations broadcast Monday's announcement live as Seihan Mori, master of the ancient Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto, painted the character on a large white panel with an ink-soaked calligraphy brush.

Fourth time

The pick of the word for the 27th annual poll by the Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation in Kyodo was based on votes cast by the public, Kyodo News reported.

There were 10,422 votes for kin out of 223,773 submissions, the Asahi Shimbun reported.

The character was chosen as kanji of the year for the fourth time, reported Japanese media.

This year's top contenders had positive meanings unlike last year, when most of the top 10 characters were virus related.

Wa, or "rings", was in second place, followed by other kanji such as "change", "new" and "hope".

The top kanji character last year was mitsu, which means dense, crowded and close, describing the three situations people in Japan were urged to avoid in order to prevent infection.

Kin, which also means money, previously won the annual vote in 2016 and 2012, after the Rio de Janeiro and London Olympics. The first time was in 2000.

Some people called this year's choice unoriginal, with one person tweeting: "I want 'kin' (to) be banned from use in an Olympic year."

Each year, the public is asked to choose the character that best describes the sentiment and events of Japan of the year.

The selection of kanji of the year began in 1995.

Agencies via Xinhua