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November 22, 2024
 

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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).
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL: KEYES' POINT
Oct 6, 2010
Hiyakasu: Teasing finds easy target in first love
"Yukino! My big brother is in love with Yukino!" Little Kimika Keyes whoops with delight, which of course only throws Peter deeper into misery. Kimika is 10 and he's 14 — he should have the upper hand, but there is in her a bewildering mix of yōchi (幼稚, childishness) and seijuku (成熟, maturity)...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 3, 2010
Why not put a little fun into your funeral?
It's your funeral. What's your pleasure?
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 19, 2010
No sex please, we are otaku!
Shock, gasp, horror. Aya Hirano is not a virgin.
Japan Times
LIFE / Travel
Sep 12, 2010
Travel through time on a trip to Otaru
The Hokkaido port of Otaru is less than an hour by train from downtown Sapporo. Same neighborhood, different world.
Japan Times
LIFE
Sep 12, 2010
Aging through the ages
"If only, when one heard That Old Age was coming One could bolt the door Answer 'not at home' And refuse to meet him!" (Anonymous, "Kokinshu" Imperial poetry anthology, 10th century)
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 5, 2010
Take it slow — but only if it suits you
Slow Life Japan is a sort of movement, or rather an antimovement, that sprouted here and there in the 1990s, little islands of quietude amid the ultra-fast life that had come to seem as unquestionable as modernity itself. Production, consumption, growth, activity, exhaustion — all very well, but what...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL: KEYES' POINT
Sep 1, 2010
Believing the unbelievable causes goshin fears
The fat, ungainly kensatsukan (検察官, prosecutor) rises and, without speaking, niramu (にらむ, glares at) the hikokunin (被告人, defendant). For a fleeting instant the chinmoku (沈黙, silence) in the hōtei (法廷, courtroom) is so deep that when Reiko Keyes, one of the six saibanin (裁判員,...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 15, 2010
Does cost of peace consign the Japanese to frailty or strength?
A series of articles in the Aug. 1 edition of The Big Issue Japan, a biweekly magazine sold by homeless people, is addressed "to adults who have never known war." Few major powers, past or present, can equal Japan in that regard. Sixty-five years of peace in a bellicose world have turned war in this...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL: KEYES' POINT
Aug 4, 2010
Ai to kiratta — love and hate in equal measure
You just what, Peter? You just what?"
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 1, 2010
Depression takes hold as promises of Utopia fade away
Why isn't this Utopia? Why, given material and technological advantages beyond the wildest dreams of our most visionary ancestors, are we floundering in a sea of despair?
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL: KEYES' POINT
Jul 7, 2010
Consulting the hermit monk Ryokan reincarnated
So I'm to be a kyōju (教授, professor) again. Imagine that. Am I doing the right thing? Where's my jisonshin (自尊心, pride)? Shouldn't I have keibetsu shita 軽蔑した, spat in their faces) when they asked me back, or told them I was busy?
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jun 20, 2010
Is Japan going loopy in a world so alien
"Loopy," "hapless," "embarrassing" — such is the world's, and Japan's, verdict on the short unhappy prime ministership of Yukio Hatoyama. In retrospect, this 21st-century Japanese Don Quixote seems to have been doomed to failure from the start. What he attempted was honorable, but impossible. What...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL: KEYES' POINT
Jun 2, 2010
Igi ari — no leading the witness, or grandma
"My next shōnin (証人, witness)," intones the corpulent kensatsukan (検察官, prosecutor), "is Mr. Toshi Saito. Mazu (まず, first of all), please tell the court, Mr. Saito, what your kankei (関係, relationship) was with the hikokunin (被告人, defendant), Yasuo Yamazaki."
Japan Times
LIFE
May 9, 2010
Children of Japan
Childhood. We all know it, we've all been through it, we've all lost it. Memory retains traces of it. We recall facts, incidents, fragments — but not what it felt like to be a child. Childish feelings are nameable to the adult, but not recoverable. They are on the other side of an impassable boundary...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL: KEYES' POINT
May 5, 2010
Rusuban: The family oni is left holding the fort
"Daddy, when I grow up I wanna be a kyabajō (キャバ嬢, nightclub hostess)!"
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL: KEYES' POINT
Apr 7, 2010
Bōtō chinjutsu: First volleys in courtroom battle
"Kiritsu! (起立! All rise!)" cries the court clerk. The judges — three saibankan (裁判官, professional judges) and six saibanin (裁判員, lay judges), Reiko Keyes among them — take their places. Reiko is surprised at how full the courtroom is. It's manseki (満席, a full house). The case...
Japan Times
LIFE
Mar 14, 2010
In the land of the kami
"In some rural areas even today, elderly villagers face the rising sun each morning, clap their hands together, and hail the appearance of the sun over the peaks of the nearby mountains as 'the coming of the kami,' " — so wrote historian Takeshi Matsumae in "The Cambridge History of Japan," published...
Japan Times
LIFE
Mar 14, 2010
Symbols of heaven on Earth
There are about 80,000 torii-gated Shinto shrines in Japan, many of them unassuming little roadside structures at which, from time to time, you might see a passerby pause, briefly join his or her hands in prayer and move on, enriched and refreshed in ways an outsider can hardly presume to say.
Japan Times
LIFE
Mar 14, 2010
Buddhism's arrival, Shinto's endurance
In A.D. 552 (or 538 — experts disagree; some say it never happened) a Korean envoy presented himself at the Japanese court of Emperor Kimmei.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL: KEYES' POINT
Mar 3, 2010
At times the job of a saibanin can be real murder
Reiko glances nervously about her. She's never been in a saibansho (裁判所, courthouse) before. The sixth floor, the yobidashijō (呼び出し状, summons) had said. She looks around for an elevator.
Two of America’s biggest debt holders are dumping Treasurys
The U.S. Treasury building in Washington. Investors in Japan and China sold a pile of U.S. debt in the last quarter, just before the U.S. presidential election.
Ishiba aggravates his own political failures with diplomatic faux pas
Prime Minster Shigeru Ishiba is greeted at the APEC summit in Lima by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Friday. The Japanese leader was criticized for remaining seated while meeting several world leaders at the event.
Japan's 3.31 million visitors in October set monthly record
Kiyomizu Temple in Kyoto in December 2023. Famous autumn leaf colors contributed to increased tourism demand last month from many markets across Asia, Europe and North America, the Japan National Tourism Organization has said.
Japan ranks last in romance satisfaction for second straight year
In a survey of 31 countries, Japan ranked last in terms of those who felt loved, with just 51% of respondents saying so.
Ruling coalition and DPP strike last-minute deal over economic policy
DPP policy chief Makoto Mahaguchi speaks at the party's policy gathering in Tokyo on Wednesday.
Japan, U.K. and Italy discuss inviting more countries to joint fighter project
A new concept model of a next-generation fighter jet to be jointly developed by Japan, Britain and Italy is on display in Farnborough, Hampshire, in July.
Haruki Murakami's 'The City and Its Uncertain Walls' gives deep deja vu
For “The City and Its Uncertain Walls,” translated into English by Philip Gabriel, Haruki Murakami confronts the ghosts who won't leave him alone.
Japanese expats in Asia find community through rugby
The Taiwan Fivewoods celebrate their victory at the 2023 Asian Japanese Rugby Cup in December of last year.
In Fukushima, a weekend of prose, poetry and translation
Aomori-based writer JJ Carter presented on tabletop gaming as creative inspiration for building characters and narratives.
For Dr. Nakamats, aging is just experience in action
Though he didn't win the recent gubernatorial election in Tokyo, the 96-year-old Dr. Nakamats' run was seen as inspirational in Japan's aging society.

Podcast

One of the many entrances to the Kabukicho neighborhood in Tokyo’s Shinjuku Ward.
Kabukicho: Tokyo’s ‘stadium of desire’

Longform

Construction takes place on the Takanawa Gateway Convention Center in Tokyo, slated to open in 2025.
A boom for business tourism in Japan?
By Kathryn Wortley

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