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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 Times
LIFE
Feb 22, 2009
Refuge . . . of a sort
The main character of the one-act play that follows is loosely based on the few known facts concerning a Russian nobleman-refugee named Semyon Nikolaevitch Smirnitsky. Born in St. Petersburg in 1879, Smirnitsky fled the Russian Revolution in 1919 and spent the rest of his life in Japan, mostly in Otaru,...
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL: KEYES' POINT
Feb 4, 2009
Offensive compliments: A drinker's sober lesson
Of all the stupid, idiotic . . . sumimasen. Stuart Keyes is my name. I'm not in the best of moods, though you mustn't judge me by that. I'm good-humored enough most of the time, but . . .
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Jan 7, 2009
Modern childhood holds many a lesson for adults
The reader is invited to accompany me on a trip (return, not one-way) to second childhood. Those of us who learned Japanese as adults missed out, after all, on a vast store of linguistic experience. Is it irretrievable? Maybe not. The child's world is laid out in children's books. Leave your adulthood...
LIFE / Lifestyle / 2008 MEDIA ROUND-UP
Dec 28, 2008
Making sense of the strange changes of 2008
Every year, the Japan Kanji Aptitude Testing Foundation selects a "kanji of the year." This year's is "hen," meaning "change" or, equally, "strange, peculiar."
Japan Times
JAPAN / History
Dec 14, 2008
Mystery shrouds the ancient Oshoro circle
In 1861 at Oshoro, southwestern Hokkaido, a party of herring fishermen, migrants from Honshu, were laying the foundation for a fishing port when they saw taking shape beneath their shovels a mysterious spectacle — a broad circular arrangement of large rocks, strikingly symmetrical, evidently man-made....
LIFE
Dec 14, 2008
Progress, and war, arrive
Terrified of death, having inflicted it on many, the Chinese ruler Qin Shi Huang (259-210 B.C.) sent his court sage, Xu Fu, across the eastern seas in quest of the elixir of eternal life. Xu Fu's 60 ships, carrying (says one version) 3,000 virgin boys and girls, left port in 210 B.C., never to return....
LIFE
Dec 14, 2008
Stone Age Japan
This story spans 10,000 years, yet presents few recognizable individuals. Here's one:
LIFE / Language / BILINGUAL
Nov 18, 2008
Keeping a close eye on the neighborhood news
You can live for years in a major city without knowing such a thing exists, but in more tranquil, less distracted settings, an unexpected ring of the doorbell as likely as not signals a neighbor bringing the kairanban (回覧板), an irregularly circulated newsletter put out by the local neighborhood...
Japan Times
LIFE
Jul 27, 2008
Cipangu's landlocked isles
Thirteenth-century Japan has this in common with early 19th-century Japan: a land culture paying scant heed to the sea until the sea, as though in outrage, rises up and compels attention.
LIFE
Jul 27, 2008
Japan's sea view through the ages, in poetry, prose and plain speaking
At Tafushi Cape / Those gracious men of the court / gather seaweed. — "Manyoshu" (7th century)
Japan Times
LIFE
Jul 27, 2008
Was the 'Japanese Renaissance' lost at sea?
Last week, Japan celebrated Umi no Hi (Marine Day). First observed as a national holiday in 1996, Marine Day marks the anniversary of the return of Emperor Meiji from a boat trip to Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido on July 20, 1876.
LIFE
May 25, 2008
Sonoko
"You're a strange girl!" muttered my mother, shaking her head.
LIFE
Dec 23, 2007
One missionary's 'swamp' is another's 'religion allergy' challenge
"For 20 years I labored in the mission. The one thing I know is that our religion does not take root in this country."
Japan Times
LIFE
Dec 23, 2007
Japan's 'Hidden Christians'
"It is 12:30 p.m. in Nagasaki, on March 17, 1865. Father Bernard Petitjean, a priest of the French Societe des Missions Etrangeres, hears a noise at the back door of his little chapel. On opening he is surprised to find a group of 15 middle-aged Japanese men and women — surprised because all native-...
Japan Times
LIFE
Dec 23, 2007
From Bliss to blood
Some scholars say Japan's Christian history began long before the so-called "Christian century" (1549-c.1640). Their claim takes us all the way back to 7th- and 8th-century Nara, where Nestorian Christians from Persia are said to have built churches, operated a leper hospital and even converted the Empress...
LIFE / Language
Dec 4, 2007
Translating full of judgment calls, compromises
Second of two parts
LIFE / Language
Nov 27, 2007
New translation vividly depicts postwar Tokyo
Shishi Bunroku (the pen name of Iwata Toyoo) is a writer who deserves to be better known. His novel "Jiyu Gakko (School of Freedom)" was a best seller when it first appeared in 1951, and gives as vivid a picture as we're likely to get today of what daily life was like in postwar Tokyo.
Japan Times
LIFE
Aug 12, 2007
Japan's Paradise Lived
It's a strange world we're about to enter.
LIFE
Aug 12, 2007
Has another society of such superlatives ever existed at all?
The fascination of the Heian Period (794-1185) lies in the fact that in all world history there is nothing quite like it. It would be hard to imagine a culture more exclusive, more fastidiously refined, more smugly incurious about the unknown, more unwarlike, more tearfully melancholic, more sensitive...
Japan Times
LIFE
Apr 29, 2007
Japan's love affairs with sex
Michael Hoffman delves deep into the carnal history of these islands from the Age of the Gods to the lovelands and soaplands of today
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.
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By Kathryn Wortley

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