There is less than a month left this year. In Western courtiers, many people are already busy preparing for Christmas. In Japan, we don’t have the custom of celebrating Christmas since the majority of Japanese people are not Christians. In December, we are busy preparing for our most important, traditional event/festival the “New Year’s Holidays”, and there are various events through which we look back on the year that is coming to an end.
Yesterday, the top 10 winners of the 2009 buzzwords and new words of the year contest were announced. Since these words reflect the social conditions of the year, many people pay attention to the contest. The grand prize was awarded to “政権交代/ Change of administration/government" which was used over and over by our current Prime Minister until the last election in August. Unlike the results in previous years, this year, there were three words relating to politics in the top 10 words, which shows that we cannot talk about the Japan of 2009 without discussing the change of administration and the policies of the new government.
The other two words relating to politics were 脱官僚/debureaucratizing or debureaucratization and 事業仕分け/project classification. The former was a campaign slogan used by a remarkable politician. The latter is a very hot phrase. The new government, in order to review the entire national budget, held an open meeting for 9 days, and the meeting ended only a few days ago. Among about 3000 taxpayer-financed projects, the government first picked out 477 projects in which there were uncertainties and the need to review their budgets. The 477 projects were discussed in the meeting. Only an hour was allocated to each project. The bureaucrats and other people in charge of projects answered questions asked by members of the meeting, who had been chosen by the government. They also had to deliver effective presentations within that hour to persuade the members to approve their budgets. Anyone was able to watch the meeting at the meeting place and through live blogs. Although the meeting is controversial among specialists, politicians and the other people involved, it’s been reported that the majority of the public shows afavorable attitude toward the open meeting. It’s true that the meeting led to many people becoming more interested in how and for what their taxes have been used.
