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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 / History / THE LIVING PAST
Oct 18, 2014
Getting to the heart of Murasaki's 'Tale of Genji'
"If any society in the world can be described as unique," wrote historian Ivan Morris, "it is that of Heian Kyo in the time of Murasaki Shikibu."
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 11, 2014
The horrific act that connects Islamic State to a few Japanese schoolchildren
Beheadings. Dismemberings. The world is turning into a horror movie.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 27, 2014
Tales from the city show cracks in the system
Why are people unhappy? Think back to just about any historical period you like, from the remote past to times within living memory; imagine people then looking at us now and saying, "How dare you be unhappy? You haven't earned the right!"
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Sep 27, 2014
Japan — A short Cultural History
If there's room in your life for just one general history of Japan, let this be the one. In the hands of a master, history becomes art. British scholar-diplomat Sir George Bailey Sansom (1883-1965) was such a master.
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Sep 20, 2014
Can simplicity survive contact with complexity?
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 13, 2014
Women express pride in remaining a virgin
"The pleasure is momentary, the position ridiculous, and the expense damnable."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Sep 6, 2014
The Journey
On most lists of great 20th-century Japanese writers, Jiro Osaragi's name does not figure. He was popular and respected in his own day (1898-1973), mostly as a writer of historical fiction, but literary immortality has eluded him. So?
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 30, 2014
Tokyo's robotic eyes are everywhere
You are not alone.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 23, 2014
The well-off families who are feeling unwell
We're not living right. It's obvious, though whose fault it is may not be, and what to do about it is certainly not.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 16, 2014
The Nobility of Failure
Who hasn't at one time or another suspected that failure is nobler than success? Here the late British historian Ivan Morris celebrates Japanese heroes who refused to make the tawdry compromises success all too often demands. They fail, but fail gloriously, reaping the posthumous reward of deathless...
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Aug 16, 2014
The awakening of a nation permanently at peace
There's something to be said for national isolation. Peace, for example. The very few foreigners allowed into Japan during its 250-odd years of almost total seclusion, from the early 17th century to the mid-19th, were awed by the spectacle of a nation permanently at peace.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 9, 2014
Ah, vaginas! In defense of taboos
Two words have been let loose on society by an artist who, for better or worse, may find the rest of her life and career inextricably bound up with them, "vagina" being one and "taboo" the other. The artist herself needs no introduction. She is (or briefly was) the most famous woman in Japan, thanks...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 26, 2014
Is Japan sinking further into 'Aum-ification'?
The world — this insignificant little spinning rock we call home — is nearing its end. Armageddon lies ahead: violence, upheaval, horror. The normal human mind shrinks from the mere thought, but "higher consciousness" embraces it. Higher consciousness sees things in a wider perspective. Where you...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books / ESSENTIAL READING FOR JAPANOPHILES
Jul 26, 2014
Long, Long Autumn Nights: Selected Poems of Oguma Hideo, 1901-1940
Some truths only a poet can utter. "Oh, God! / Give me talent / For insult and profanation / To revile You / and my enemies!"
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Jul 19, 2014
'Leaving the world' to gain freedom
A challenge: Scan Japanese history in search of freedom fighters. You won't find many. Not freedom but submission was the proud Japanese ideal.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 12, 2014
The high cost of peace and quiet
Peace and quiet! How rare it is, how precious. Why rare? Because a full-blooded modern economy is no monastery, no "ancient pond" into which a frog may jump, producing the hushed "sound of water" immortalized by the haiku poet Basho (1644-94).
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jun 28, 2014
A life of lettuce has its benefits
Lettuce. Let us raise a glass to lettuce.
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Jun 28, 2014
When a physical wasteland bred a moral wasteland
He lived by fire and he died by fire. He was vile — coldblooded, amoral, ruthless. He was the man his time called for, and the man his time called forth — a vile time, by most standards. Its name is Sengoku Jidai, a period of prolonged civil war. Oda Nobunaga (1534-82) is its most representative...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jun 21, 2014
Advances in robotics present singular worry
'Singularity' is an odd word. Originally it meant peculiarity. Then 20th-century physicists got hold of it and situated it at the very boundary of space-time, to the eternal bafflement of the lay mind.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jun 7, 2014
Japan's salarymen are bored to tears
It seems odd to be talking about boredom in such interesting times. Are you bored? Almost certainly you are, if Spa! magazine's insights are reliable. Polling 2,052 mid-career (age 35-45), moderately prosperous (annual income ¥4 million-¥6 million) businessmen (sic, men only), it found no fewer than...
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.
Russia fired experimental ballistic missile at Ukraine, Putin says
Ukrainian firefighters work on a spot following an airstrike in Dnipro on Thursday.
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.
'Tokyo Swindlers': Get deep into the minds of real estate con artists
In Ko Shinjo's "Tokyo Swindlers," a group of con artists manipulates real estate giants into falsified deals within the highly competitive, quick market.
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.

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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