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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).
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 / History / THE LIVING PAST
Aug 15, 2015
The fraught debate over science and divinity
Truth is a sordid business. It brings nations down to earth, cuts people down to size. Why honor it, therefore? Why esteem it above myth, which does the opposite, raising nations to the gods and turning ordinary, unremarkable people into subjects of divine rulers?
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.
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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