author

 
Menu
Search
 
November 22, 2024
 

Today's print edition

Home Delivery
Subscribe for more access
Michael Hoffman

Meta

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
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?
CULTURE / Books
May 13, 2012
Tokugawa: the art of governing
PERFORMING THE GREAT PEACE: Political Space and Open Secrets in Tokugawa Japan, by Luke S. Roberts. University of Hawai'i Press, 2012, 263 pp., $49.00 (hardcover)
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Apr 29, 2012
Japanese families on endangered list
The family is humanity's oldest and most universal institution. But its shape, size, aims and ideologies seem infinitely variable. Japan's families down the ages have been polygamous and monogamous, multigeneration and single-generation, swarming with children or comparatively, if not entirely, devoid...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Apr 22, 2012
The weeklies need to expand their worldview
Japan cuts the world down to size. Thumb through the popular weekly news magazines to get the idea. The weeklies pride themselves on broader, bolder, feistier coverage than the daily press typically musters. All the same, theirs is a small, shrunken world. It consists of four countries: Japan, the United...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Apr 8, 2012
Lack of strong ties spurs business of dying alone
New businesses arising to meet new needs tell us much about the times we live in. A cleaning company named Green Heart, for example, thrives on a peculiar expertise. Its website explains: "Sadly, it often happens that unclaimed bodies go long unnoticed. In summer after two days, in winter after four...
CULTURE / Books
Apr 8, 2012
Purity and pollution in Japan
TROUBLED NATURES: Waste, Environment, Japan, by Peter Wynn Kirby. University of Hawaii Press, 2011, 250 pp., $49.00 (hardcover) Japan "is enmired in waste." Naturally — what industrialized or industrializing nation isn't? It's a ubiquitous problem urgently demanding an elusive solution, studied accordingly...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Apr 2, 2012
Noda's plan to increase sales tax
There's no such thing as a popular tax increase. Woe betide the leader who sees no other way out of a fiscal impasse.
Japan Times
LIFE
Mar 25, 2012
Sakura: Soul of Japan
"If I were asked to explain the Japanese spirit, I would say it is wild cherry blossoms glowing in the morning sun!" — Motoori Norinaga (1730-1801), nativist thinker and poet
Japan Times
LIFE
Mar 25, 2012
Blooms of death
"If only we might fall Like cherry blossoms in the spring — So pure and radiant !"
Japan Times
LIFE
Mar 25, 2012
Petals 'perfect beyond belief' stir poetic
Two natural facts have had a disproportionate impact on Japanese culture: cherry blossoms are beautiful, and they fall.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Mar 25, 2012
Is Japan as busy as it first seems?
Are things what they seem? Can you tell a book by its cover? Does the face reveal the heart? Does your appearance give you away?
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Mar 11, 2012
The power of bad news
Weekly Playboy magazine discerns among young people a rising interest in Buddhism. This is surprising, given Japan's well-known "religion allergy" — or not, given that troubled times often inspire spiritual quests.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Mar 5, 2012
Hashimoto: a young politician to keep an eye on
He's young, photogenic, energetic, brash, bold, intelligent — and, almost oxymoronically, a politician, one of very few in Japan within living memory who come close to fitting such a description. He has many ideas, all of which boil down to this: "Nihon no kuni wo ichi kara risetto shite, mōichido...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Feb 26, 2012
Media continues to despair over Japan's fall
Japan's decline has no historical parallel. It is a current fed by two streams — economic and demographic. Economically, barring an unforeseen upsurge, gross domestic product is forecast to fall 16 percent by 2025, 42 percent by 2050. Demographically, in 50 years there will be 40 million fewer Japanese...
CULTURE / Books
Feb 19, 2012
Japan's indigenous Ainu, 'a different world'
AINU SPIRITS SINGING: The Living World of Chiri Yukie's Ainu Shinyoshu, By Sarah M. Strong. University Of Hawaii Press, 2011, 314 pp., $58.00 (hardcover) "In the past this spacious Hokkaido was our ancestors' world of freedom. Living with ease and pleasure in the manner of innocent babes in the embrace...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Feb 12, 2012
This country needs a lot more lovin'
Japan's rather tepid sex life of late has drawn considerable attention, not so much prurient as anxious. What does it mean when young people in their sexual prime are bored by sex or can't be bothered with it? The implications are various: psychological (has life grown too virtual to be real?), economic...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Feb 6, 2012
Hard to give yourself up when you're a wanted man
'Hirata Makoto desu. Shuttō shite kimashita." (「平田信です。出頭してきました」"I am Makoto Hirata. I've come to give myself up").
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

SUSTAINABLE JAPAN

mission sustainability vol.12 : Kose Corp.Kose takes pride in creating beauty in the world
mission sustainability vol.12 : Kose Corp.Kose takes pride in creating beauty in the world

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS note

Read more

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER