Michael Hoffman - The Japan Times

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Michael Hoffman

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Michael Hoffman

Michael Hoffman is a fiction and nonfiction writer who has lived in Hokkaido by the sea almost as long as he can remember. He has been contributing regularly to The Japan Times for 10 years. His latest novel is "The Naked Ear" (VBW/Blackcover Books, 2012).

Japan Times

JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN

Aug 1, 2015

A political turning point for Japan's youth

July 15, 2015, will go down in Japanese history. As what, though? The day democracy's decline became irreversible? Or the day democracy's decline was reversed?

Japan Times

JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN

Jul 25, 2015

Growing up to the idea of fighting back

Psychologist Toshio Kawai has an interesting hypothesis. We may, he says in an article written for the Asahi Shimbun's Globe, be entering an age when "becoming an adult will not be necessary."

JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST

Jul 18, 2015

Propagating Russian Orthodox faith in Japan

As astonishing as its vigor is the fact that Russia's eastward expansion, beginning in the 16th century, went all but unnoticed, by Japan no less than by Europe.

Japan Times

JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN

Jul 11, 2015

Dark humor won't shield us for much longer

'I hope," read an email from a colleague boarding an Osaka-bound shinkansen in Tokyo last week, "nobody sets himself on fire."

Japan Times

JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN

Jun 27, 2015

Humans may face a singular concern when it comes to robot employment

The trouble with machines is, they do things better than we do. "Give me a place to stand and I will move the Earth," said the third-century B.C. Greek inventor Archimedes, lever in hand. The Earth has been moving ever since, ever faster.

JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST

Jun 20, 2015

Jomon life 'remained pretty much unchanged'

Jomon Japan is fantastic. It ought to be preserved in stone. It was preserved in stone. For 10,000 years, this New Stone Age culture flourished. It is one of the longest-running single traditions in the world. A man, woman or child dying in, say, 10,000 B.C. and coming back to life circa 400 B.C. would...

Japan Times

JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN

Jun 13, 2015

Ojika's residents beat the rat race by abandoning it, bucking a national trend in the process

If only there was an island somewhere ...

Japan Times

JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN

May 30, 2015

Is 'proactive peace' just a new term for war?

"Have you ever heard the roar of a jet fighter?"

Japan Times

JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN

May 16, 2015

'Kantei Santa' makes himself heard over the din of the election vans

Is crime justified in the service of good?

JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST

May 16, 2015

Weighing the human cost of industrialization

In the year the West knows as 604 A.D., one of Japan's most revered statesmen, Shotoku Taishi, issued a "constitution," the first of whose 17 articles states, "Harmony is to be valued."

Japan Times

JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN

May 2, 2015

Giving parents credit where rent is due

We choose our friends but we don't choose our parents. Nor do they choose us. It's a pretty fraught relationship, sometimes, that between parent and child. Perhaps "love-hate" best describes it — hopefully with love dominant.

Japan Times

JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN

Apr 18, 2015

Porn is in the iPhone of the beholder

"Her lips languorous like a loose-wound spool, the fragrance of her perfume reaching to the skies. And how lovely when she moves, swaying back and forth. ... When compared to this creature, a man's wife can hardly seem more than a salted fish past its prime!"

Japan Times

JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST

Apr 18, 2015

Mastering the art of partaking in a tea ceremony

"Cold, withered, shrunken."

Japan Times

JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN

Apr 11, 2015

Overseas observers spot something strange

Is Japan a strange country?

Japan Times

JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN

Mar 28, 2015

Postwar education at a vexing crossroads

In July 1995, a special edition of Aera magazine reflected on 50 years of postwar evolution. Education was among the topics covered.

Japan Times

JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN

Mar 21, 2015

Sexual identity isn't as simple as it once was

All societies are repressive — some brutally, others benignly, more or less. No society allows us to fully express our true selves. Some societies squash our true selves. Even those that don't will at least keep them in check to some degree. Society could hardly function otherwise.

JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST

Mar 14, 2015

Nation stiffens defenses to counter invasion

Doom was closing in. It was greeted with anxiety but without surprise. Its coming had been foreseen. Two centuries earlier — in the seventh year of the Eisho Era, 1052 by the Western calendar — humanity had entered the degenerate age of Mappo, the Latter Days of the Law. So taught the Buddhist...

Japan Times

JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN

Mar 7, 2015

Where will 'proactive pacifism' lead us?

Seventy years after World War II ended, should we be thinking about war or about peace?

Japan Times

JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN

Feb 21, 2015

Goto's stories put Japan woes in perspective

"More than diamonds, I want peace."

Japan Times

CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES

Feb 14, 2015

Kafu the Scribbler

"A querulous, self-righteous man, whose social criticism rarely rose above the level of personal complaining ... ."

You can often see generations of families enjoying performances together at Fuji Rock Festival.

Japan’s summer music festivals are feeling the heat in more ways than one

Akiko Trush says her experience with the neurological disorder dystonia left her feeling like she wanted to chop her own hand off.

The neurological disorder that 'kills culture'

By Tomoko Otake

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