KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 20 — The Chinese character "盼” (pàn) which means to hope for was selected by Malaysians as the word of the year 2021 in an annual poll, beating nine other words to reflect Malaysians’ sentiments.

In the Malaysia Annual Selection of Chinese Characters results unveiled yesterday, the Chinese word bearing the meaning "to hope for” edged out the others narrowly by 17.94 per cent.

The poll involved 10 words; "乱” (luàn) meaning confusion, disorder or chaos the runner-up drawing 15.70 per cent of the votes. This was followed by "累” (lèi), meaning being tired or weary at 13.87 per cent of the votes, and "苗” (miáo) which is a character forming part of the Chinese word for vaccine, at 13.26 per cent.

The poll only saw the Chinese characters being displayed without their meaning being stated, with other words seen including those denoting difficulties, lockdown, injection, home, and recovery or restoration.

Local vernacular newspaper Sin Chew Daily cited the selection committee chairman Datuk Goh Hin San as saying that last year’s winning Chinese character which denotes epidemic or disease won with over 30 per cent of the votes.

Goh was reported contrasting it with this year’s poll where the four leading Chinese characters had a stiff contest from the beginning to the close of voting, and that this reflected the complicated and mixed emotions of Malaysians.

He was reported saying that the poll reflected Malaysians being able to hold one’s own and their optimistic wisdom while facing political instability, financial difficulties, the epidemic and ethnic ties’ issues.

He said the winning Chinese character for this year was mainly selected by voters in the age group of 70 and above, as well as 40 and below.

Federation of Chinese Associations (Malaysia) (Huazong) president Tan Sri Goh Tian Chuan, who was also on the selection committee, was also quoted by Sin Chew Daily as saying that Malaysia’s word of the year 2021 was coincidentally the same as Singapore’s.

Commenting on this year’s word of choice by Malaysians, he said it reflected Malaysians’ hope for the Covid-19 pandemic to be a matter of the past, and also hope for more stable politics for the country’s recovery and development.

The winning Chinese character for the other years roughly denoted the meaning of turning or changing direction (2011), change (2012), inflation (2013), voyage but with the character forming part of Malaysia Airlines’ Mandarin name (2014), hardship (2015), greed (2016), road (2017), change (2018), deception or cheating (2019), and epidemic or disease in 2020.