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April 08, 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 Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 27, 2018
Moral education may not reflect the realities of life in Japan
What's wrong with the following story?
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Oct 20, 2018
Life lessons from the master of noh Zeami
Stately, stylized noh arose from primitive, rollicking ancestors — sarugaku (monkey music) and dengaku (rural music). Two qualities in particular define it: yu016bgen (mystery) and monomane (imitation).
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Oct 13, 2018
Natural disasters shake the nation to attention in 2018
You wake to pitch blackness, the house shaking crazily. Nightmare? Yes — a waking one. "Where are my glasses?" You're helpless without your glasses. The shaking gets worse.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 29, 2018
Few question the death penalty for heinous crimes
Should murderers be put to death? Yes, says Japan. No, says (increasingly) much of the rest of the world. Japan swims against the current.
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 15, 2018
News outlets fret over the nation's docile democracy
"Nazism." "Fascism." "1984." "Kamikaze." Strong words, suggestive language. It's going mainstream.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Sep 15, 2018
The long struggle to become international
Eighth-century Japan was an infant civilization. Its prehistory had been long. Awakened at last, Japan drank eagerly from the source: China, then at its creative peak.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Sep 8, 2018
Japan loses sleep over a variety of modern-day issues
"O sleep, o gentle sleep, nature's soft nurse" — Shakespeare, as usual, says it best.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 25, 2018
The efforts of Japan's first female doctor are worth remembering
Ginko Ogino deserves to be better known — especially now.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Aug 18, 2018
Heian literature: Is all fair in love and no war?
There's nothing quite like Japan's Heian Period (794-1185). Almost four centuries of peace and a governing aristocracy of culture set it apart.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Aug 11, 2018
Solitude appears to have an image problem in Japan
"Is solitude an illness?"
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 21, 2018
Learning to live with a vulnerability to violent actions
Nature bursts its bounds. People seethe and erupt.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History
Jul 14, 2018
Japan was slow to drive its pigs to the market
Ancient Japan appears to us as a land of warriors, priests, aristocrats, artists, poets, lovers, peasants — but one group is missing.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jul 7, 2018
Exploring the bare difference between a truth and a lie
"Kill one man, and you're a murderer. Kill millions, and you are a conqueror. Kill them all, and you are a god."
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jun 23, 2018
Marriage is not always the bed of roses it's supposed to be
Whenever you read about people doing things you yourself would never dream of doing, you naturally wonder: Is it a warped individual nature that is to blame? Is it the nature of the time, the place, the circumstances?
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
Jun 16, 2018
Japan's gods: More benevolent than fearsome
The most violent episode in Japanese mythology is the rampage through the Sun Goddess' rice fields by her unruly brother Susano'o, the Storm God.
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Jun 9, 2018
Communication difficulties continue to torment Japan
If communication is measurable in terms of number of words, we are the greatest communicators in the history of our species. Question: Who's listening?
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
May 26, 2018
You can't plan for bad luck in the long winter of life
Wisdom is age and age is wisdom. Confucius, summing up his life, said, "At 70 I followed my heart's desire without overstepping the line." It's as good a definition of wisdom as any.
Japan Times
JAPAN / History / THE LIVING PAST
May 19, 2018
Watanabe Kazan: Too open-minded for Edo
Imagine living in a 'closed country.' Japan was such for over two centuries, from the anti-Christian hysteria of the 1630s to the incursion in the 1850s of the American 'Black Ships.'
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
May 12, 2018
Japan redraws its line in the sand for poverty
If an income of ¥10 million a year can't save you from poverty, what can?
Japan Times
JAPAN / Media / BIG IN JAPAN
Apr 28, 2018
Confronting the definition of a 'moral education'
How can people be taught to be good? What does "good" mean? "Moral education," the education ministry explains on its website, "aims to develop a Japanese citizen who will never lose the consistent spirit of respect for his fellow man; who will realize this spirit at home, at school and in other actual...
Nissan says it will not take new U.S. orders for Mexican-built Infiniti SUVs
A Nissan manufacturing complex in Aguascalientes, Mexico. Nissan says it will not take new orders from the United States for two Mexican-built Infiniti SUVs following new auto tariffs levied by the U.S.
Why Japan is running out of rice — and farmers to grow it
An ongoing shortage of rice has resulted in rising prices for Japan's main food staple.
Nikkei plunges in third-biggest daily loss ever amid Trump tariff concerns
Pedestrians stand in front of an electronic board showing the numbers of the Nikkei Stock Average on the Tokyo Stock Exchange along a street in the Japanese capital on Monday.
Ride-hailing services spreading in Japan
Vehicles used for ride-hailing services in the city of Kiryu, in Gunma Prefecture
Taiwan eyes zero tariffs with U.S., pledges more investment
Kids view the area from a lookout point over cranes and containers at the Port of Keelung, Taiwan, on Thursday.
‘Let’s make it practical’: NATO chief eyes greater defense-industrial ties with Japan
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte plans to visit Japan on Tuesday and Wednesday — his first to the Indo-Pacific region since taking office in October, as he seeks to implement lessons from the ongoing war in Ukraine.
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.
Haruki Murakami TV adaptation revisits 30 years of watershed moments
Though Haruki Murakami's trademark whiff of offbeat existentialism is threaded throughout NHK's "After the Quake," the final episode — conceived as a sequel to the story "Super-Frog Saves Tokyo" — is the most stylized, featuring an anthropomorphic talking frog (voiced by Non) and his erstwhile associate Katagiri (Koichi Sato).
Nintendo to launch the Switch 2 on June 5
The controllers for the Switch 2 will attach to the console magnetically rather than sliding on rails as with the original device.
A new human trafficking trend emerges from Myanmar scam centers
Victims of scam centers who were tricked or trafficked into working in Myanmar gather at a compound inside KK Park, a fraud center on the country's border with Thailand, after a multinational crackdown in February.

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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