Year’s end is a time to look back over the past twelve months – in words. The events in Asia during the past year, large and small, threw up numerous colorful words in half a dozen languages that helped to frame the current events of 2011, but also lifted the corner on the deeper aspects of Asian life and culture. Here are a few of them.
The mammoth earthquake/tsunami that struck Japan’s northeast coast in the afternoon of March 11, precipitating multiple meltdowns at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power station, gave rise to the phrase Fukushima Fifty. It referred to a small but intrepid band of nuclear power plant workers who braved high levels of radiation to help bring the damaged nuclear power plant under control.
The term Fukushima Fifty was always a bit of hype, more popular in the West than in Japan, in that many more nuclear power plant workers, soldiers and many others, some 19,000 in total, labored to bring the plant safely under control by the time it was declared to be in safe 'cold shutdown' condition in mid-December.
Another term stemming from the nuclear accident, fly-jin, enjoyed a brief vogue, referring to those foreigners who fled Japan – or at least Tokyo – shortly after the nuclear crisis to escape possible advancing radiation exposure, only to return sheepishly later. In Japanese the word jin means person, and the new word is a takeoff on gaijin, a word for foreigner.
The Japanese word for conserving electricity, setsudan, became the byword during the summer after the nuclear crisis that resulted in many more plant closures across Japan, sparking fears of rolling blackouts in the capital and a plea to conserve electricity. The two Chinese characters for setsudan were seen on notices everywhere explaining that this elevator or that escalator was out of service, this building had dimmed its lights or curtailed operating hours to save on electricity.
In July Japan’s woman’s national soccer team Nadeshiko lifted everybody's spirits in a country hungry for good news after their country’s greatest post-war disaster by beating the U.S. women’s soccer team to win the 2011 FIFA Women’s World Cup tournament. The women were the first Japanese, male or female, to win a World Cup championship, and they became instant celebrities, creating the new term Nadeshiko Power, after a hardy, pink-frilled carnation native to Japan. The word was chosen as Japan’s 'top buzzword of the year' for 2011.
The body of the late North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il, who died of a heart attack on Dec. 17 at age 69, lay in state in Pyongyang covered by a red blanket and surrounded by bouquets of red kimjongilia, literally the "flower of Kim Jong-il." It is a hybrid of the begonia family, originally bred by a Japanese admirer and botanist named Motoderu Kamo to honor the North Korean leader on his 46th birthday in 1988. The flower is now widespread across North Korea and supposedly blooms every year around February 16, which is the late Dear Leader’s birthday.
