TOKYO, Dec. 13 (Xinhua) -- A Chinese character, or Kanji, meaning "fake" was selected Wednesday by the Japanese as the symbol which best describes the situation in Japan in 2007, according to Japanese media.

    The result represented Japanese people's anger over the society's darkness exposed in 2007, including a series of financial scandals involving Cabinet ministers, the Social Insurance Agency's blunder of losing about 50 million pension records and some well-know food companies' forgery of production dates.

    In the annual event organized by the Japan Kanji ability assessment association, the character "fake" won 16,550 or about 18 percent of votes among the total of 90,000 questionnaires received.

    The chosen character was announced and written with a brush by the host of a famous temple in central Japan's ancient city of Kyoto.

    "I am ashamed and furious of the selection of such a character. It's a woeful society in which people cheat for their own interests," the host said.

    "It has been a year of puzzlement. We don't know what to believe," one left the message on the Internet.

    Characters meaning "lie", "suspicion", "apology" and "change", all of which contain negative meanings, were among the top six chosen by the public.

    The Kanji association began organizing such annual selection in 1995. The character meaning "life" was chosen in 2006 for the birth of the first grandson of Emperor Akihito.