Japan has chosen the written character "kizuna", meaning "bond", as best representing 2011, in a year when the country's worst calamity since the war saw strangers rushing to help one another.
Half a million people took part in the annual poll to select a kanji character -- kanji being one of the three scripts used in written Japanese -- with around 60,000 of them nominating "kizuna".
Japanese people found renewed value in maintaining links with family and friends as well as in assisting strangers in need, said the Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation, which organised the poll.
The character, an ideograph derived from written Chinese, also has echoes of the Arab Spring movement, where waves of people organised themselves via social media in their quest to end oppressive regimes, the foundation added. (AFP)
Japan has chosen the written character "kizuna", meaning "bond", as best representing 2011, in a year when the country's worst calamity since the war saw strangers rushing to help one another.
Half a million people took part in the annual poll to select a kanji character -- kanji being one of the three scripts used in written Japanese -- with around 60,000 of them nominating "kizuna".
Japanese people found renewed value in maintaining links with family and friends as well as in assisting strangers in need, said the Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation, which organised the poll.
The character, an ideograph derived from written Chinese, also has echoes of the Arab Spring movement, where waves of people organised themselves via social media in their quest to end oppressive regimes, the foundation added. (AFP)