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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 / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 28, 2012
You can't choose your (invisible) neighbors
Some animals are solitary. Others live in flocks or herds. Human beings are somewhere in between. Our sociability and our economic needs force us into communities, where our misanthropy, meanness and selfishness — or maybe it's an instinctive craving for solitude — can make our neighbors' presence...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 14, 2012
Women in their 40s have it better than men
It was a shock and a disappointment to learn, courtesy of a survey released in August by the Dai-ichi Life Research Institute, that men in their 40s are the unhappiest people in Japan. Who are the happiest? This is even more surprising: men in their 80s. That gives younger men something to look forward...
Japan Times
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Oct 1, 2012
The unneighborly side of nationalism
It's out in the open now: Japan is not well liked in its neighborhood, and it doesn't take much to dissolve the surface civilities.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 30, 2012
What nightmares may come, when we shuffle onto an immortal coil
"In 20 years human beings will neither die nor age."
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 (第三十回オリンピック競技大会,...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 26, 2012
Complacency perished in the Fukushima nuclear disaster
August, that most searing of months, compels us to reflect on the atom. Japan was atom-bombed twice in August 67 years ago, and Hiroshima since 1952 and Nagasaki since 1955 have hosted solemn anniversary ceremonies to keep the memory alive in the hope of preventing similar horror and folly in future....
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
He left no isho (遺書, suicide note), so his deepest feelings can only be guessed — first from his jisatsu (自殺, suicide) at age 13, and secondly from the testimony of dōkyūsei (同級生, classmates) elicited in a tardy and grudging school and police investigation into the case.
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 9 quake;...
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."
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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