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
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Apr 4, 2020
Defining masculinity in a brave new world of despair
Dad works in a bank. “For a man, work is everything” — that’s his motto. It was his father’s before him. Unquestioned and undoubted, it entered his bloodstream.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Mar 28, 2020
Face masks can foster a false sense of security
What’s happening in Japan is written all over our faces — our blank, expressionless, masked faces. Never before, it seems safe to say, have so many people gone about masked.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Mar 14, 2020
The Edo Period: An era of utter weirdness
The Edo Period (1603-1868) was a bizarre time that visitors to Japan could not help but comment on — the countless laws, the brutal punishments ... and the dogs.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Mar 7, 2020
Paradise lost: Japan longs for simpler times in trying days
The Japanese weren't always workaholics. Once upon a time, work had its place and knew its place. It didn't swallow life whole. Other pursuits were given their due. People worked without being consumed by work.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Feb 22, 2020
Fake news rears its ugly head amid COVID-19 outbreak
Fake news times fake news is fake news squared — which is to say, it goes viral. It multiplies like a virus, which multiplies like fake news.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Feb 8, 2020
Examining the cold hard facts of dependency
Everybody's hooked on something. What's life without its little pleasures? Mere struggle for survival. Smokers crave nicotine, coffee-drinkers caffeine, gamers games. The pursuit of happiness takes many forms. Society approves of most, frowns on others. Some it bans outright.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Feb 8, 2020
Engelbert Kaempfer on the old roads of Japan
'Japanese travel more often than other people,' wrote Engelbert Kaempfer, the 17th-century physician, scholar, naturalist and explorer whose 'History of Japan' (1712) was the first full-length foreign-language portrait of the nation.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 25, 2020
Decline of social engagement may betray democracy
Japan's three leading newspapers, disagreeing on much, agree on this: Japan's democracy is in crisis.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Jan 18, 2020
Kukai: Sowing the seeds of Shingon Buddhism
'Some say that though Kobo Daishi (Kukai) left this life he did not die, that he lies uncorrupted in (his tomb on Mount Koya) under these ancient trees, awaiting the coming of the future Buddha who will signal the salvation of the world' — Oliver Statler, 'Japanese Pilgrimage' (1983)
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jan 11, 2020
Keeping one eye open on Japan's attempts to sleep
Sleep.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Dec 28, 2019
Childhood in Japan is certainly not getting any easier
The girl was 15, the teacher in his early 30s. He recognized her ability, encouraged her, befriended her, seduced her. He took her to a love hotel and said, "This is what grown-ups do."
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Dec 14, 2019
Laughing at life's trials and tribulations in Japan
Life is tragic, life is comic; the glass is half-empty — no, half full. Point of view is all. Two magazines — President and Spa — represent the opposite poles of optimism and pessimism. For President, bad luck and good luck are all in the mind. The former is a failure of will, the latter always...
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Dec 14, 2019
Poetic escapism for the end of the year
If the year-end seems less festive than foreboding, escape through the poems of the 'Koshinsu,' Japan's earliest poetic anthologies.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Nov 30, 2019
A world in disarray but Japan appears to sidestep turmoil
The world is furious.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Nov 16, 2019
News outlets are uncertain about the nation's future
The BBC in October published a glowing encomium to Japanese cleanliness. "How," it asks, "does Japan stay so clean?"
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Nov 16, 2019
Gazing in wonder at the many faces of the moon
Why do the sun and the moon see so little of each other?
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Nov 2, 2019
Examining a jealousy that's a long way from the green-eyed monster
'Comparison is a very foolish attitude," said Indian mystic Chandra Mohan Jain, popularly known as Osho (1931-90), "because each person is unique and incomparable. Once this understanding settles in you, jealousy disappears."
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 19, 2019
Uncontrollable rage is largely a sober phenomenon
How we hate each other.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Oct 19, 2019
Be a frog and jump into Basho's pond
We must know, 'that a haiku does not express ideas but that it puts forward images reflecting intuitions.' — Daisetsu T. Suzuki
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 6, 2019
When everything in life boils down to a bad smell
An 8-year-old schoolgirl having trouble making friends thought it might be because she smelled bad. She sweated heavily. There's not much you can do about it, except wash, and wash, and wash, but the smell remains — in your own mind if not in the nostrils of your classmates — and it grows on you...
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

SWCC keeps changing with keyword ‘new challenges’
SWCC keeps changing with keyword ‘new challenges’

SPECIAL SUPPLEMENTS note

Read more

SUPPLEMENTS BINDER