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July 16, 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 / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 23, 2012
No trusting those who descend from heaven
Just for fun, try this whimsical little experiment: search the Japan Times website for "regain trust." It's an expression that recurs so often, and has such a long history, you'd almost think it meant something.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 9, 2012
Joy among the clouds and shadows
Yoko Sakata was an ordinary "office lady," not earning much and not aspiring to much, when she began suspecting her boyfriend of having an affair. She hired a private detective, who confirmed her fears and then paid her a compliment: "You have good intuition." He offered her a job. She grabbed it. That...
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Sep 3, 2012
Imagine a better Olympics for Japan
"Sekai wa itsuka hitotsu ni naru" (「世界はいつかひとつになる」) — that's what "And the world will be as one," from John Lennon's "Imagine," sounds like in Japanese, at least according to the Asahi Shimbun. The matter arises in connection with the dai sanjukkai orinpikku kyogitaikai...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 26, 2012
Complacency perished in the Fukushima nuclear disaster
...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Aug 19, 2012
Japanese-Americans: life after the war and internment
AFTER CAMP: Portraits in Midcentury Japanese American Life and Politics, by Greg Robinson. University of California Press, 2012, 328 pp., $27.95 (paperback) "A Jap is a Jap."
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 12, 2012
Seeking eternal youth in an aging society
Here's an idea: we all retire at 40.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Aug 6, 2012
School bullies need to take responsibility for their actions
...
Japan Times
LIFE
Jul 29, 2012
The Taisho Era: When modernity ruled Japan's masses
"Democracy is so popular these days!" — "The Democracy Song," 1919
Japan Times
LIFE
Jul 29, 2012
Revolution was in the air during Japan's Taisho Era, but soon evaporated into the status quo
In the summer of 1918, "rice riots" swept the country. They began in a fishing village on the Sea of Japan in remote Toyama Prefecture. By September, some 2 million people in hundreds of municipalities had taken to the streets. They looted, bombed, demonstrated, struck.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 29, 2012
Who can we vote for to avoid the worst-case scenario?
"Japan's Worst-Case Scenarios" — that's the title of the lead feature in the July issue of the monthly Takarajima. No one writing on such a theme need fear a shortage of material. The magazine easily fills 40 pages analyzing catastrophes and catastrophes-in-waiting: Tokyo leveled by a magnitude...
Japan Times
LIFE
Jul 29, 2012
'Taisho Democracy' pays the ultimate price
Party politics seems as natural to many of us today as government itself, but imagine how it looked to the uninitiated 150 years ago.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 15, 2012
Aging Village shows the way with switch to solar
Eighty kilometers from Oi, Fukui Prefecture, is the village of Sanno, Hyogo Prefecture — 11 households, population 42, average age 60 plus.
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jul 2, 2012
After 15 years, Mainali is a free man
Freed June 7 from 15 years' imprisonment for a murder he apparently never committed, Govinda Prasad Mainali declared himself full of gratitude. Speaking through his lawyer, he said, "Mujitsu, shinjitsu wo shinjite kureta saibankan ni deaete yokatta. Kansha no kimochi de ippai desu," (「無実、真実を信じてくれた裁判官に出会ってよかった。感謝の気持ちでいっぱいです"」"It's...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 1, 2012
The land where sex fears to tread
No love, no sex, no marriage, no kids — such, in glum outline, is Japan today. It's too bleak a picture, it can't be true! But it can't be false either. If it were, people would be marrying, making babies and having love affairs. Instead, statistics reflecting everything from marriage and childbirth...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jun 24, 2012
The doomsday cult of 9-to-5 depression
One of the enduring mysteries of the Aum Shinrikyo atrocities of the 1990s is the ease with which the cult attracted members. The arrest this month of the last two fugitives allegedly involved in Aum's fatal 1995 sarin gas assault on the Tokyo subway system recalls the whole ghastly episode, together...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jun 10, 2012
It's not that easy to quit
"If you don't like it, quit."
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jun 10, 2012
Okinawa: a long history of hardship
THE OKINAWAN DIASPORA IN JAPAN: Crossing the Borders Within, by Steve Rabson. University of Hawai'i Press, 2012, 312 pp., $55.00 (hardcover) Okinawa, mainland Japan's subtropical playground, is no paradise to Okinawans. Ryukyu, the archipelago's original name, means "circle of jewels." Lush appearance...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jun 4, 2012
A hot genpatsu-free summer threatens
Two things make a battered Japan cringe: genpatsu (原発, nuclear power) and fukeiki (不景気, economic stagnation). The nation has suffered deeply from both. As spring fades into a potentially sweltering, potentially stagnant summer, there arises an agonizing dilemma: Can the latter be avoided, or...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
May 27, 2012
For some, jail is the best place for aged care
So it's come to this: "Prison is heaven, freedom is hell." A country of which this can reasonably be said is in sad straits. Can it be reasonably said of Japan? It's the subhead of a recent article in Shukan Shincho magazine whose main title is "Happy prison life." Prison life is not happy, unless in...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
May 13, 2012
Beware not the loud girls, but the plain ones
No one who remembers the ganguro (black-face) girls of the mid to late 1990s will be shocked by Friday magazine's little article on the hadeko (loud kids) of today, but it all gives rise to a bemusing question: How did the age-old quest for beauty become transmuted into a quest for weirdness?
Who needs AI when you have Hatsune Miku?
Over the first six months of 2024, a handful of songs using Vocaloid singer Hatsune Miku’s voice have enjoyed widespread attention, underlining a global interest in the character and the technology she represents.
Bloodied Trump survives assassination attempt at political rally
Former U.S. President Donald Trump is surrounded and evacuated by Secret Service agents at a campaign rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday. Trump was rushed off stage at the rally after shots rang out.
Shooter came within inches of killing Trump, but left few clues as to why
An aerial view shows the stage where Republican presidential candidate and former U.S. President Donald Trump had been standing during an assassination attempt the day before, and the roof of a nearby building where a gunman was shot dead by law enforcement, in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Sunday.
Yen’s woes seem too big for even a BOJ hike this month to solve
The Bank of Japan headquarters in Tokyo
How to beat Japan’s summer heat in ways better for the planet
Tenugui towels hang up to dry at a dyeing company in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, on May 8. The durable and versatile tenugui, which many people have in their homes, can be used in many ways to cool one’s body.
How to beat Japan’s summer heat in ways better for the planet
Tenugui towels hang up to dry at a dyeing company in Sakai, Osaka Prefecture, on May 8. The durable and versatile tenugui, which many people have in their homes, can be used in many ways to cool one’s body.
After Trump shooting, U.S. presidential race might take a violent turn
United States Secret Service Counter Snipers stand guard on a rooftop during a campaign rally for U.S. President Donald Trump in Avoca, Pennsylvania, in 2020.
No AC this summer? No problem (for me).
Think air conditioning is a requirement for a Tokyo summer? Think again.
She’s paying ¥1 million to help behind the scenes at the Paris Olympics
Mai Tarumi, who previously volunteered at the postponed Tokyo Olympics in 2021, has a travel budget of ¥1 million for her trip to volunteer at the Paris Games.
How to tweak your diet when temperatures spike
Most people think of hydration as a strictly liquid-based concept, but eating foods with high water content is an essential part of making it through a Japanese summer unscathed.

Podcast

You can often see generations of families enjoying performances together at Fuji Rock Festival.
Japan’s summer music festivals are feeling the heat in more ways than one

Longform

Akiko Trush says her experience with the neurological disorder dystonia left her feeling like she wanted to chop her own hand off.
The neurological disorder that 'kills culture'
By Tomoko Otake

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