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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
Feb 5, 2012
Stressful times lead to rise in child-abuse cases
Who can contemplate a newborn infant unmoved by its helplessness? Few living things are as vulnerable; none for anywhere near as long. Far beyond infancy, into childhood and adolescence, human beings are, if not utterly at the mercy of circumstances beyond their control, at least impressionable to a...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 29, 2012
Unconventional thinking is the way forward for Japan
Yubari, Hokkaido, claims several distinctions, few of them enviable. It is Japan's only bankrupt city, and also its most elderly. Forty-one percent of its sagging population of 13,000 (down from 117,000 50 years ago) is aged 65 or over. That's of nationwide significance because within 40 years, Japan,...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 22, 2012
Japan needs a little Cuban-style happiness
A Japanese journalist in Cuba sees decaying buildings and undernourished citizens and wonders, "Why aren't these people depressed? Why, on the contrary, do they seem positively happy?"
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Jan 15, 2012
The other side of world's 'worst battle'
FIGHTING SPIRIT: The Memoirs of Major Yoshitaka Horie and the Battle of Iwo Jima. Edited by Robert D. Eldridge and Charles W. Tatum. Naval Institute Press, 2011, 224 pp., $26.95 (hardcover) Iwo Jima is a tiny sliver of an island 1,200 km south of Tokyo, an unlikely setting for anything historical, let...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 8, 2012
'Strange' is the new 'normal' for 2012
"Whatever happens won't be strange."
JAPAN / Media
Dec 25, 2011
The aftershocks of 2011 will be felt for many years to come
We made history this year. They'll be writing about 2011 a hundred, maybe a thousand years from now, seeing it more clearly than we can. We're too close for a proper perspective. We know what it feels like — not yet what it means.
CULTURE / Books
Dec 25, 2011
Soseki leaps to defense of Japanese literature
Most people probably have a list of universally acclaimed geniuses, icons and luminaries whose greatness they simply fail to appreciate. "Am I stupid?" you wonder — or do claims of greatness tend to be inflated? Topping my personal list, as far as Japan is concerned, is novelist Natsume Soseki (1867-1916)....
Japan Times
LIFE
Dec 25, 2011
The holy trinity of religions
Michael Hoffman's latest book is "Little Pieces: This Side of Japan" (VBW, 2010)."In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." — Genesis 1:1
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Dec 11, 2011
Japanese 'good-for-nothings' heart Bhutan
Japan is in love — with Bhutan, a supposed Shangri-La of a country nestled in the Himalayas, famous for deemphasizing gross domestic product (GDP, the standard measure of well-being) in favor of a more abstract, possibly more human metric known as gross national happiness (GNH).
CULTURE / Books
Dec 11, 2011
No quick, easy path to haiku enlightenment
100 SELECTED HAIKU OF KATO IKUYA, translated with a study by Ito Isao. Chuseki-sha, 2011, 104 pp., ¥3,500 (paperback) Ikuya Kato (born 1929) is a modern haiku poet of the "free verse" school. Haiku itself is probably the shortest form of literature there is. Its classical structure is a cluster of 17...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Dec 5, 2011
Unknown consequences if Japan joins TPP
Japan couldn't make up its mind, so it was up to Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda. On Nov. 13 he made it official: Japan would join multilateral negotiations aimed at forging a free-trading Kan-Taiheiyo Keizai Renkei Kyotei (環太平洋経済連携協定, Trans-Pacific Partnership, TPP).
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Nov 27, 2011
Nuke fears may spread faster than radiation
There are the measurable aspects of Tohoku's ongoing tragedy — so many becquerels or sieverts of radiation, so many million tons of rubble, so many trillion yen worth of damage and losses of various kinds, so many weeks, months, years or decades before cold shutdown, decontamination, reconstruction,...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Nov 13, 2011
Creating a future for Japan's aging society
Japan is an elderly country. Twenty-three percent of its population is 65 or over. By 2050, nearly 40 percent will be. Nothing like these demographics has ever been seen before, here or anywhere. This is well-known and much discussed, usually in terms of the grim implications for an enfeebled economy...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Nov 7, 2011
Occupy Tokyo lacks focus but still demands change
"Tokyo wo senkyo seyo! (東京を占拠せよ！ Occupy Tokyo!")
CULTURE / Books
Oct 30, 2011
Hope found in despair of Japanese POW camp
VICTORY IN DEFEAT: The Wake Island Defenders in Captivity, by Gregory J.W. Urwin. Naval Institute Press, 2010, 478 pp., $38.95 (hardcover) An American solder mused, "We were amazed. We had always been told that [the Japanese] were inferior people. We was amazed at how well they were bombing."
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 23, 2011
Rich can afford to jump Japan's sinking ship
If Shukan Bunshun and Shukan Diamond are both right, Japan is in serious trouble.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 9, 2011
Nonprofits in Japan help 'shut-ins' get out into the open
Not everyone fits into society. Dropping out, or falling by the wayside, has numerous causes and many manifestations.
Japan Times
LIFE
Oct 9, 2011
Women warriors of Japan
"Ah, for some bold warrior to match with, that Kiso might see how fine a death I can die!"
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Oct 3, 2011
A short history of big gaffes by Japanese politicians
"Kokoro kara owabi mōshi-agemasu" (「心からお詫び申し上げます」 "I apologize from my heart"). The hearts of Japanese politicians must be bottomless indeed, for all the apologies that seem to ferment there. Their mouths, meanwhile, are on automatic pilot, sowing shitsugen (失言, gaffe,...
Japan Times
CULTURE / Books
Sep 25, 2011
Praise, where it's due, for Japanese fascism
Once upon a time men were proud to call themselves fascist. "I am convinced," wrote a leading Japanese reformist bureaucrat in the early 1930s, "that from now on the spirit of the civilization and politics of mankind is fascist ideology ... Before the iron laws of historical development, the downfall...
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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