Dreamers choose 'meng' as their word of the year
Education Ministry's poll to choose the Chinese word of the year selects 'meng' for representing national hopes and achievements
The Chinese character meng, meaning dream, has been named "character of the year" on the mainland, putting poll organisers and much of the public on a collision course over how the word should be interpreted.
The organisers said yesterday that the word reflected the good fortune the country had been blessed with this year.
"The dream for an aircraft carrier, the dream for a Nobel prize … have all come true this year," they said.
The poll, in its seventh year, was inspired by a similar tradition in Japan, where people have voted for the single character that best reflected the collective memory or general mood of the country every year since 1995. The Japanese chose jin (gold) this year.
In Singapore, more than 3,000 voters chose the Chinese character se, meaning lust or colour, as character of the year to reflect a year of sex scandals that have dominated media headlines.