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April 04, 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 / History / THE LIVING PAST
Jun 18, 2023
Artistic beauty in the eye of a Neolithic beholder
From Neanderthal funeral rites to the temples of the Nara Era, art has been a part of our lives. At what point was beauty considered for its own sake, though?
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
May 23, 2023
Hell is a crab cannery ship in industrial Japan. The way out? Russia.
Stories of brutality from the era of industrialization are testament to the sacrifice of former generations, sacrifices that resulted in what we take for granted today.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Apr 16, 2023
Democracy in half measures? Then let violence come.
Did the toiling masses give up on Japanese democracy ahead of the war because it was coming from the mouths of the upper classes who exploited them?
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Mar 18, 2023
When Emperor Meiji opened Japan, a little democracy sneaked in
Inspiration was drawn not from liberal Britain but from authoritarian Germany. The parliament was partly appointed, partly elected — by an electorate of wealth.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Feb 19, 2023
What makes a good priest — good looks or a knack for violence?
It was a time when the temples owned great tracts of land. The priests who managed them were armed and pugnacious, ready to defend and possibly extend.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History
Jan 22, 2023
The Heian and Edo periods couldn't have been more different, which is why it's odd they ended in such a similar way
The transition from Heian Period peace to the war-prone Kamakura Period was a rough one. Surprisingly, the transition from conflict to the boardrooms of modern Japan were just as rough.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Dec 18, 2022
A musical history told through centuries of Japanese literature
The modern ear, tuned to the aesthetics of a different timbre, may find that one era's beauty is another's cacophony.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Nov 20, 2022
The challenging journey that led to Nara's crown jewel
Image and temple were each the largest structure of its kind, dwarfing all work previously done in a country whose culture had never before, and rarely since, valued size for its own sake.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Oct 18, 2022
Kamikaze drones in Ukraine conjure memories of Japan's own bombers
When Japan's military came calling, it was educated and sometimes bookish soldiers who were among those who volunteered for a desperate kamikaze mission.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Sep 18, 2022
The journey that never was: A Viking explorer in Heian Japan
If a Viking ship had landed on the shores of Japan instead of North America in the 10th or 11th centuries, what would they have found and how would it have changed history?
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Aug 21, 2022
The 'mother' of the modern otaku charted her own bug-obsessed path
One of Japan's original eccentrics, the 'lady who loved insects' ignored the trends of her day and was content to be herself — a valuable lesson to the generations that followed.
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Jul 17, 2022
Daisetz T. Suzuki: Zen enlightenment is not an idea, it’s an experience
Japanese Zen master Daisetz T. Suzuki gets philosophical with an eminent British historian of Japan.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Jun 19, 2022
How the Jewish community found a home in Japan
A bestseller from 1970 compares and contrasts two peoples more different than alike, and yet both sharing a sense of uniqueness.
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
May 22, 2022
In turbulent times, chaos grows from the barrel of a gun
Fifty years ago, a significant portion of Japan's youth chose violence. The population watched the results unfold on television like some terrifying soap opera.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Apr 18, 2022
Saigo Takamori: The last ‘true’ samurai, defender of the Japanese spirit
Saigo Takamori's samurai rank was low, but that might account for his love for the land and disdain for wealth and power.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Mar 20, 2022
A narrative forms around the 'divine country'
The seeds of modern Japanese nationalism were sown by nativist scholar Motoori Norinaga, who lauded the concept of 'mono no aware.'
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Feb 25, 2022
Watanabe Kazan: One scholar’s equivocal rebellion
Watanabe Kazan discovered a talent for drawing early on and became a hack artist, painting on demand for pennies. It kept starvation at bay.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Jan 16, 2022
A tragic narrative for women persists even as times change
A Heian Period text reads, 'Ladies must often depend on men who are nothing to them — it is the way of the world.' In Japanese literature, not much has changed.
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jan 2, 2022
Escape into the courtly Heian Period with Genji
As a new year dawns, find calm and beauty in the vanished world of Murasaki Shikibu's 'The Tale of Genji.'
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Dec 25, 2021
Yoko Ono: ‘Possibly the most famous Japanese person in the world’
John Lennon recognized her sometimes startling originality. His fans didn't. It looks like they were wrong.
As ‘Buy Canadian’ grows, more U.S. firms say retailers turning away products
Empty shelves with "Buy Canadian Instead" signs are seen in the American Whiskey section of the BC Liquor in Vancouver, British Columbia, on March 10.
U.S. tourist arrested after bringing a handgun into Japan
Hyogo police believe the handgun a U.S. tourist inadvertently brought into Japan slipped through security procedures at Kansai International Airport in Osaka Prefecture.
Trump unveils 10% global tariff, with Japan levy set at 24%
Trump tosses a MAGA hat to the crowd during an event in which he unveiled new tariffs in the White House on Wednesday.
Meiji says sayonara to bottled milk, a staple of Japan's bathhouses
Meiji bottled milk lined up in a fridge at Kosugiyu, a bathhouse in Tokyo. The sticker urges patrons to enjoy the milk one last time before it’s gone.
Japan’s leader didn’t read the job description
Prime Minister and ruling Liberal Democratic Party leader Shigeru Ishiba is facing a political funding scandal that has damaged his reputation and sparked speculation that internal efforts to remove him are underway.
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.
Meiji says sayonara to bottled milk, a staple of Japan's bathhouses
Meiji bottled milk lined up in a fridge at Kosugiyu, a bathhouse in Tokyo. The sticker urges patrons to enjoy the milk one last time before it’s gone.
A Canadian made a weekend trip to Costco a Japanese pastime
Under the watchful eye of Ken Theriault, Costco representative director and Japan country manager, the American membership-model wholesaler has flourished in Japan.

Podcast

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

Longform

Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone.
The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan
By Johan Brooks

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