National Topics

| Jun 2, 2013

Society no longer shuns solitary pursuits

by Michael Hoffman

“A solitary cloud wafted by the wind.” Thus the 17th-century wandering haiku poet Matsuo Basho described himself. Not an ordained priest, he nonetheless wore priestly garb on his journeys and was steeped in the principles of Zen Buddhism, among which solitude ranks high. Japan’s ...

Family drama is reimagined for today's Japan

| May 19, 2013

Family drama is reimagined for today's Japan

by Philip Brasor

“Kazoku Game (The Family Game),” directed by the late Yoshimitsu Morita and released in 1983, remains a movie milestone. A cynical black comedy, it presented to the world a distillation of the less edifying social outcomes of Japan’s postwar economic miracle. The Numata family ...

| May 19, 2013

Trimming the fat from Japan's problems

by Michael Hoffman

Why do people disagree? It seems a stupid question. Maybe it is. Or maybe not. Let us assume, for the sake of argument, that we are all rational beings. We possess average intelligence, adequate and more or less similar education, and copious exposure to ...