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August 15, 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).
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Feb 13, 2016
One slip can sink a salaryman's career
'I've always been shy," says Kazuo. "Face-to-face communication never came easily to me." At 48, he's been out of work five years. He lives with his mother, who's close to 80 — mostly off her pension. A typical day — typical not only of him, says the weekly Spa!, but of an increasing number of middle-aged...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 30, 2016
Is society on the cusp of massive change?
Philosopher Tatsuru Uchida, interviewed earlier this month by the Asahi Shimbun, merely confirms what we all know, or sense, when he says: "This is an age of transition. We're going through the confusion characteristic of bedrock change."
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 16, 2016
From sexual liberation to liberation from sex
Young people are forever shocking their elders, and elders, however shocking they themselves may have been to their own elders once upon a time, never fail to play their generation's perennial role of shocked onlookers to shocking youthful behavior of one sort or another.
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Jan 16, 2016
'It is I who rule' — Japan's 'Manyoshu' morning
What fun civilization is in its infancy! How bright and fresh the world looks at the dawn of consciousness! Listen:
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 2, 2016
Still dreaming of an end to household drudgery
As amazing as technology's ability to solve our problems is its inability to solve our problems. (Its tendency to create new problems is a subject best left for another day.)
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Dec 26, 2015
Can democracy survive the rise of the right?
"What," demanded a protesting student at the height of the summer of protests just past, "is to become of democracy?"
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Dec 19, 2015
Japan's 'Christian century' failed to blossom
Christmas approaches. Christian or not, the mind turns to Christian themes.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Dec 5, 2015
Hunter and hunted: Where are they now?
The mutilations are frightful — dog, cat, rabbit and pigeon corpses missing heads, tails, limbs, ears. Weekly Playboy magazine reports nearly 40 sightings in the past four months in the Kanto region alone. Who's out there doing these things? With what thoughts in mind?
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Nov 28, 2015
Japan's children face a dementia boom
Confucius said it's not enough merely to provide for our parents. We must revere them. To fail in filial reverence, he said, is to be no better than the animals.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Nov 14, 2015
More couples saying, 'I do ... but not yet'
"Just the other day I had a date with a woman. We were planning on seeing a movie but it was such a beautiful day that I said, 'We can see a movie anytime, let's watch the sunset instead.' She was furious: 'Why didn't you say so in the first place?'"
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Nov 14, 2015
Surviving a sudden transition to democracy
What is the worst thing that has ever happened to humankind?
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Nov 7, 2015
Without doubt, company executives will just go with the flow
Asahi Kasei. Toyo Tire & Rubber. Toshiba. What's the connection? Executives lined up before the cameras, bowing their heads in shame.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 24, 2015
Media vultures circle over battered SEALDs
That's it? It's over?
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Oct 17, 2015
True Edo spirit can be found while soaking in a public bath
"Public baths are the shortest route there is to moral and spiritual enlightenment. Careful reflection shows this."
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 10, 2015
It's a small world, with no respect for islands
To what extent are your problems my problems? To what extent are Syria's troubles Japan's?
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 26, 2015
Ashes to diamonds and the cost of death
'Where do we go when we die?"
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Sep 19, 2015
Government's affinity to the universe, religion
Supposing we think of the universe this way: there is Heaven and there is Earth; nothing else — no other worlds, no gods. "Heaven" is roughly analogous to what we moderns call "Nature." Heaven's laws, however, unlike Nature's, are moral, not physical.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 12, 2015
Will the bullies inherit Japan's top jobs?
Why aren't people nice, good and kind?
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 29, 2015
Only a teenager, yet an expert on war
'The last war was the worst."
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 15, 2015
Add looming poverty to list of seniors' woes
What a sad country this is. Granted, Spa! magazine paints in primary colors. Maybe it's missing a nuance or two? Maybe things aren't really so bad? Maybe. Hopefully.
Japan to revise consumption tax exemption for overseas tourists
Tourists walk through Nakamise shopping street near Sensoji Temple in Tokyo in April
Japan's tourism industry hit by cancellations after megaquake alert
A beach closed due to a megaquake alert in Hiratsuka, Kanagawa Prefecture, from Friday to Thursday.
Focus shifts to incoming typhoon as Tropical Storm Maria dissipates
Newly formed Tropical Storm Ampil, which is forecast to approach eastern Japan this weekend, is seen on the left side of this satellite image.
Kishida to step down in September in bid to show ‘LDP has changed’
Prime Minister Fumio Kishida speaks during a news conference Wednesday at the Prime Minister's Office in Tokyo.
Publisher finds surprise audience after translating history textbooks
Yamakawa Shuppansha president Takeshi Nozawa holds the publisher's textbook on Japanese history — used in high schools across Japan — alongside the new English version in Tokyo on May 23.
Economic security is about strengthening and sustaining growth, former minister says
Former economic security minister Takayuki Kobayashi says changes in the international balance of power, along with deepening economic interdependence, have led some countries to attempt to use their economic power to impose their will on others.
Ice bandanas, convenience store breaks: Running under Japan’s summer sun
Blistering heat is becoming a fixture of summer in Japan, but a few tweaks to your routine can make your outdoor runs bearable — if not enjoyable — until cooler temperatures return.
Japan issued its first-ever megaquake alert. What does that mean?
Naoshi Hirata (center), chairman of a committee tasked with evaluating the risk of a Nankai Trough earthquake, speaks at a news conference in Tokyo on Friday.
France brings down the curtain on its Olympic party with Tom Cruise and Leon Marchand
Fireworks are set off during the closing ceremony of the 2024 Paris Olympics at Stade de France in Saint-Denis on Sunday.

Podcast

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

Longform

Sociologist Gracia Liu-Farrer argues that even though immigration doesn't figure into Japan's autobiography, it is more of a self-perception than a reality.
In search of the ‘Japanese dream’
By Thu-Huong Ha

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