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November 23, 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
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 21, 2019
Getting to the bottom of what civilization means in Japan
Progress: good, or bad? Bad, thought Confucius, who for hundreds of years taught Japan to seek its ideals in the ancient past. Good, thought 19th-century modernizers, who redirected the nation's gaze to the future.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 14, 2019
Can Japan's families remain relevant in contemporary times?
"Why don't they get married?" anguished parents wonder of their aging unmarried children.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Sep 14, 2019
The swift rise and fall of Japanese anarchism
Sakae Osugi — born 1885, murdered 1923 — fanned the flames of the peasant Rice Riots in Japan's short-lived age of anarchy.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 31, 2019
Aspiring to achieve forgiveness in the most difficult times
"To be wronged is nothing," said Confucius — "unless you continue to remember it."
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 17, 2019
Dissecting the benefits of medical intervention in Japan
"Lies!" "Nonsense!"
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Aug 17, 2019
In the anarchy of Japan's industrial revolution
Japan's Meiji Era (1868-1921) industrial revolution set a scene of chaos for the nation's advocates of political and social change.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 3, 2019
Low voter turnout in Upper House election may reflect an indifference to democracy
In May 1993, general elections were held in Cambodia. Voter turnout was 89.56 percent.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 27, 2019
Tracing the fluctuations in moral standards
"More than 16,500 women and men were sterilized against their will," reads a newsletter published in 1997 by the Network on Ethics and Intellectual Disability.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Jul 20, 2019
Hideyo Noguchi: Under the microscope
Hideyo Noguchi (1876-1928) may be Japan's most famous scientist. His face adorns the u00a51,000 bill. His life story is legendary, folkloric.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 13, 2019
Working harder in a bid to save labor is proving exhausting
The utopia of utopias is "Utopia" by Sir Thomas More (1478-1535). Its best feature is leisure. There are no idle nobles; everyone works. A burden shared is a burden lightened. Utopians "do not wear themselves out with perpetual toil from morning to night, as if they were beasts of burden." They work...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jun 29, 2019
As dementia cases rise, so a nation's character changes
"Your mother is senile, senile, senile!"
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jun 15, 2019
'Lawyerlessness' is a luxury Japan can no longer afford
In 1983, Time magazine looked at Japan and saw, to its astonishment, a "land without lawyers." "Most Japanese," said its report, "live — and die — without ever having seen a lawyer." Was this a country, or a mystic brotherhood? In the U.S. there was one lawyer for every 400 citizens; in Japan, one...
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Jun 15, 2019
Oshio Heihachiro: Confusing Confucianism
In 1837 famine raged: In Europe, socialist consciousness was dawning, but in Japan, shut tight for two centuries against the outside world, revolt against the established order was Confucian.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jun 1, 2019
Is disgust with the status quo now feeding nostalgia for the past?
Bulgarian scholar Ivan Krastev, in an interview with the Asahi Shimbun published in March, compared the restless discontent of the 1960s with that of today. Fifty years ago, he said, disgust with the status quo fed hope for the future. Today it feeds nostalgia for the past.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
May 18, 2019
Aging population spurs drive to tidy nation's cluttered homes
KonMari? Let's, by all means.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
May 18, 2019
Go-Daigo's mysterious and most loyal warrior
'No famous character in all Japanese history is quite as obscure as Kusunoki Masashige,' writes historian Ivan Morris on 14th-century Emperor Go-Daigo's most loyal samurai.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
May 4, 2019
Deciphering the curious act of talking to oneself
Talking to oneself is not respectable. It suggests many things, none of them good: abysmal loneliness, a mental screw loose, a social wire frayed, insanity, dementia. Shukan Post magazine this month cites experts in dementia who see solitary dialogue as a potential premonitory sign — not a conclusive...
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Apr 20, 2019
Understanding the true ties between health and success
There's a right way and a wrong way to do everything — and you're probably doing it wrong.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Apr 20, 2019
Emperor Go-Daigo: The pride before a fall
The anonymous 14th-century chronicle 'Masukagami' ('The Clear Mirror,' translated by George Perkins), dramatically details the trials and errors of Emperor Go-Daigo, the 96th emperor of Japan.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Apr 6, 2019
New era offers Japan an opportunity to reassess the future
What's in a name? What's in an era? What is an "era"? What's a "new era"? Are we entering one?
Japan approves ¥21.9 trillion stimulus plan
The policy chiefs of the Democratic Party for the People, Liberal Democratic Party and Komeito — Makoto Hamaguchi (left), Itsunori Onodera (center) and Mitsunari Okamoto — shake hands after reaching an agreement on an economic stimulus package on Wednesday.
Tokyo Metro’s overseas efforts begin in earnest with London deal
Tokyo Metro will soon have a role in the running of London's Elizabeth Line, a major train route serving the U.K.’s capital city and environs.
Saitama court bans demonstrations over anti-Kurd hate speech
Kurdish people in Japan in 2015. A court injunction has banned acts that defame the Japan Kurdish Cultural Association and are disrespectful, such as putting up banner flags or handing out fliers with hate speech like “Refugees should go back to their home countries.”
China reinstates visa-free travel for Japanese nationals
Beijing Daxing International Airport
Shohei Ohtani wins National League MVP award
Shohei Ohtani celebrates after hitting a three-run home run against the Padres during the National League Division Series at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles last month.
The slow-burn success of ‘A Samurai in Time’
A 19th-century warrior gets struck by lightning and wakes to find himself in 21st-century Kyoto in Junichi Yasuda’s surprise hit “A Samurai in Time.”
Around a quarter of Japan married couples in their 20s met through dating apps
A survey released by an organization promoting “Good Couples Day” shows that 24% of couples in their 20s met their marriage partner through a dating app.
'Tokyo Swindlers': Get deep into the minds of real estate con artists
In Ko Shinjo's "Tokyo Swindlers," a group of con artists manipulates real estate giants into falsified deals within the highly competitive, quick market.
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.

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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