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April 11, 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 / 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...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 18, 2011
Is permanent connectedness really something we all need?
An Associated Press report of Apple Inc.'s CEO Steve Jobs' resignation last month stated, "Jobs helped change computers from a geeky hobbyist's obsession to a necessity of modern life at work and home." This testifies to Jobs' genius but fails to raise what seems an obvious question: Is it a change for...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Sep 5, 2011
National child allowance threatened by rebuilding cost
Kodomo teate (子供手当て, child allowance) is a benign, beneficent social policy rooted in horror, having first seen the light of day in certain European countries that had been dangerously depopulated by World War I.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 4, 2011
These may be interesting times, yet we yearn to return to normality
"May you live in interesting times," goes the familiar curse — or as the Chinese say in a similar vein, "It's better to be a dog in times of peace than a human in times of chaos."
CULTURE / Books
Aug 28, 2011
Forgotten atrocity of the atomic age
Hiroshima was nothing. Nine years later on March 1, 1954, there occurred at Bikini atoll in the Marshall Islands an atomic blast equivalent to 1,000 Hiroshimas.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 21, 2011
Now it's Japan's turn to shout 'Yes, we can!'
Two thousand eight was a dreadful year. Long wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were going badly. The U.S. "subprime crisis" was strangling the global economy. Rising food prices were causing concern at best, riots at worst. The worse things got, the more helpless the world's democratic leaders showed themselves...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 7, 2011
Man convicted of murder may soon be proved innocent
"Can you imagine how it feels for an innocent man to be kept in prison for years?" demanded Govinda Prasad Mainali during a Japan Times interview in November 2003.
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Aug 1, 2011
Japan finally seems to be shifting from nuclear power
Post-nuclear Japan?
LIFE
Jul 31, 2011
Most unlikely bedfellows
"How wonderful! How marvelous! From here to the southeast is what the Westerners call the Pacific Ocean and the American states! They must be very close!" — Watanabe Kazan, artist and samurai, in a diary recording a sojourn in Enoshima, an island off Kamakura in present-day Kanagawa Prefecture,...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 17, 2011
It seems Japan has literally gone to the dogs
Japan has found an answer to loneliness, despair, fear, disgust and uncertainty. Hint: It's alive, stands on four legs and barks. Well, so much the better if the gloom weighing us down can be so easily dispelled. Or is it?
CULTURE / Books
Jul 10, 2011
Salvation through baffling wisdom
PURIFYING ZEN: Watsuji Tetsuro's Shamon Dogen. Translated by Steve Bein. University of Hawai'i Press, 2011, 174 pp., $24 (paper) Zen is baffling: You find yourself wrestling with thoughts such as "It is easy to grasp body-mind. The world is like rice or flax or bamboo or bulrushes."
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jul 4, 2011
Today's youth have it hard, but is it worse than before?
Young people the world over are stuck with the world as it is, a world they had no hand in making. From the sidelines they blame their elders for this stupidity and that, and vow to do better when their turn comes, only to find, for the most part, that youthful risōshugi (理想主義, idealism) dies...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 3, 2011
Japan needs to do more than simply 'cope' with stress
What's ailing us? The list is long. In a nutshell: stress. Sixty percent of Japan's work force suffers from it, according to the business magazine Weekly Toyo Keizai.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jun 19, 2011
Japan's leadership desperately needs some sex appeal
What a pity Aristophanes died c. 388 B.C: That classical Athenian comic playwright knew politics and politicians. They kindled his comic wrath. "O, thou that shavest close thy passionate arse!" he wrote of one politician. Of another: "Noisome was the stench that issued from the brute as it slid forth,...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jun 6, 2011
What will Japan learn from the Fukushima meltdowns?
Can Japan afford nuclear power? Can Japan afford to dispense with nuclear power? If the answer to both questions is no — as, in the wake of the Fukushima reactor meltdowns, it appears it may be — we are at a fukurokōji (袋小路, impasse). What to do?
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jun 5, 2011
Sadly, the pleasant diversion of literature is losing its appeal
Radiation and rubble — that's Japan's reality now and for the foreseeable future; the only escape is to seize the bull called "relevance" by the horns and fling it to the devil. Gladly I accept the challenge. If I need an excuse, the bimonthly magazine Brutus provides one. Its June 1 edition, 118 pages...
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
May 22, 2011
Extreme nationalism may emerge from the rubble of the quake
Destruction, when massive but not total, engenders rebirth, or reinvention, or both. Japan after World War II is a prime example, a model from which Japan in the wake of March's earthquake-tsunami-meltdown is sure to draw inspiration.
Takayasu’s latest heartbreak makes sumo history
Takayasu during the one-day Annual Sumo Tournament at the Ryogoku Kokugikan in Tokyo on Feb 9, 2020
Trump's tariff gambit leaves Asia stunned and scrambling
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks as he attends the National Republican Congressional Committee dinner in Washington on Tuesday. Trump allowed new tariffs — including a 24% levy on Japan — to go into effect as scheduled on Wednesday.
Tokyo cheers Trump’s tariff U-turn with second-biggest market gain ever
U.S. President Donald Trump looks on after signing an executive order in the Oval Office of the White House on Wednesday in Washington.
Banks freeze withdrawals for foreign nationals upon expiration of visas
Foreign residents who fail to renew their residential statuses before their expiry may find that they won’t be able to withdraw cash from their bank accounts.
Japanese badminton ace Shida blasts 'stalker' Chinese fans
Chiharu Shida of Japan in action during the bronze medal match with Nami Matsuyama against Pearly Tan and Muralitharan Thinaah of Malaysia at the 2024 Olympic Games in Paris, France on Aug. 03, 2024
Who is Ryosei Akazawa, Japan's tariffs negotiator?
Economic revitalization minister Ryosei Akazawa, who Prime Minister Shigeru Ishiba has appointed Japan's tariff negotiator, is one of his closest allies and busiest ministers.
After a tumultuous buildup, a first look at the Osaka Expo
A large statue of Osaka Expo mascot Myaku Myaku sits near the east entrance of the event's venue in Yumeshima island, Osaka, on Wednesday.
Japan gets a new U.S. ambassador — and he has his work cut out for him
George Glass, U.S. President Donald Trump's pick to be ambassador to Japan, attends a Senate Foreign Relations Committee confirmation hearing in Washington on March 13.
Online art scene eager to go offline, at least for the moment
Digital artist Polygon1993 revels in the physicality of nostalgic technology, making art out of materials such as miniature CDs, holographic prints layered with plexiglass shards and a giant custom-made floppy disk.
Tottori takes a bold leap forward in the arts
The city of Kurayoshi in Tottori Prefecture celebrated the opening of its public art museum with festivities such as a parade that drew 1,000 revelers.

Podcast

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

Longform

An ongoing shortage of rice has resulted in rising prices for Japan's main food staple.
Why Japan is running out of rice — and farmers to grow it
By Alex K.T. Martin

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