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April 08, 2025
 

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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
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 / 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...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
May 24, 2014
Will Japan be a country that welcomes all?
"A nation of immigrants." Japan? The leading proponent of that vision has been Hidenori Sakanaka, former head of the Tokyo Immigration Bureau, current executive director of the private think tank he founded in 2007, the Japan Immigration Policy Institute.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
May 17, 2014
'Japan is back' but small business isn't
The old Japan is dying. Is a new Japan being born?
JAPAN / History
May 17, 2014
Wrong to judge early imperialist Japan too harshly?
"Korea turned out to be this nice, laid-back place..."
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
May 10, 2014
Convenience stores give our nation pride
Japan's prime minister is an unabashed patriot, as outspoken in his love for his country as in his desire to instill that love in his compatriots. Are his compatriots receptive? Opinion polls on attitudes toward pending revisions of long-standing interpretations of the pacifist Constitution, prologue...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Apr 26, 2014
Mini-revolutions may add up to a change
1949. The war was over. Slowly, a numbed populace rose from the dead. That year, 2.7 million babies were born — a record high, never surpassed.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Apr 19, 2014
How should a civilized nation treat women?
In 1872, a Peruvian ship transporting Chinese coolies docked at Yokohama for repairs. One of the coolies jumped overboard and sought refuge, complaining of gross ill-treatment. What to do?
JAPAN / History
Apr 19, 2014
Taking a maiden stab at expansionism in Taiwan
Taiwan is Japan's forgotten colony.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Apr 12, 2014
'Big Pharma' manipulating the market? Now that's depressing
You're the entrepreneurial type, let's say, ambitious but a little unsure of yourself. What field is ripe for your energy and enthusiasm?
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Mar 29, 2014
The truth is, we have gotten too used to lying
Philosophers love truth — that's a truism. What about the rest of us? Do we love truth or falsehood? Truth, we naturally affirm. So why are we swimming in falsehood?
JAPAN / History
Mar 22, 2014
The sloughing of Japan's corporate skin goes on
"Man is born free and is everywhere in chains."
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media
Mar 15, 2014
Japan's future may be stunted by its past
Is time carrying us forward, or backward?
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Mar 1, 2014
Why marry, or worry, when we can be alone together in ohitorisama Japan?
As people increasingly choose to live and do things alone, is Japan evolving into an 'ohitorisama' nation? Time will tell.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Feb 15, 2014
A tale of two Abes: PM's rosy view jars with life of toil seen in poison case
Did the frozen-food poisoner have some obscure notion of 'justice' in mind? Might it have been his way of saying to Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, 'Japan is not back; Japan won't be back until working for a living does not entail the sacrifice of all human dignity
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Feb 15, 2014
Once upon a time, China anointed a 'King of Japan'
In 1401, barely a century after the Mongols' aborted invasions of Japan, and 600-odd years before Japan and China fell out over the Senkaku islets, a Chinese emperor conferred upon a Japanese shogun the title "King of Japan."
LIFE / Lifestyle
Feb 1, 2014
Pursuit of happiness
The merry residents of Japan have long sought to attain the 'pleasantest of all diversions
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Feb 1, 2014
For Japan's foreign residents, the little things make such a big difference
American political ideals may be grander, European philosophy may be deeper, Islamic faith may be firmer than anything native to Japan — but Japan, perhaps uniquely, knows the value of small things.
Nissan says it will not take new U.S. orders for Mexican-built Infiniti SUVs
A Nissan manufacturing complex in Aguascalientes, Mexico. Nissan says it will not take new orders from the United States for two Mexican-built Infiniti SUVs following new auto tariffs levied by the U.S.
Why Japan is running out of rice — and farmers to grow it
An ongoing shortage of rice has resulted in rising prices for Japan's main food staple.
Nikkei plunges in third-biggest daily loss ever amid Trump tariff concerns
Pedestrians stand in front of an electronic board showing the numbers of the Nikkei Stock Average on the Tokyo Stock Exchange along a street in the Japanese capital on Monday.
Ride-hailing services spreading in Japan
Vehicles used for ride-hailing services in the city of Kiryu, in Gunma Prefecture
Taiwan eyes zero tariffs with U.S. and pledges more investment
Kids view the area from a lookout point over cranes and containers at the Port of Keelung, Taiwan, on Thursday.
‘Let’s make it practical’: NATO chief eyes greater defense-industrial ties with Japan
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte plans to visit Japan on Tuesday and Wednesday — his first to the Indo-Pacific region since taking office in October, as he seeks to implement lessons from the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Tottori takes a bold leap forward in the arts
The city of Kurayoshi in Tottori Prefecture celebrated the opening of its public art museum with festivities such as a parade that drew 1,000 revelers.
Haruki Murakami TV adaptation revisits 30 years of watershed moments
Though Haruki Murakami's trademark whiff of offbeat existentialism is threaded throughout NHK's "After the Quake," the final episode — conceived as a sequel to the story "Super-Frog Saves Tokyo" — is the most stylized, featuring an anthropomorphic talking frog (voiced by Non) and his erstwhile associate Katagiri (Koichi Sato).
Nintendo to launch the Switch 2 on June 5
The controllers for the Switch 2 will attach to the console magnetically rather than sliding on rails as with the original device.
A new human trafficking trend emerges from Myanmar scam centers
Victims of scam centers who were tricked or trafficked into working in Myanmar gather at a compound inside KK Park, a fraud center on the country's border with Thailand, after a multinational crackdown in February.

Podcast

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

Longform

An ongoing shortage of rice has resulted in rising prices for Japan's main food staple.
Why Japan is running out of rice — and farmers to grow it
By Alex K.T. Martin

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