What is the definition of Japanthropology?

Japan, we can all understand the meaning of the word no doubt. Anthropology is a fairly common word too. Though to be fair, we might want to check it on an online dictionary like Webster’s:

Etymology: New Latin anthropologia, from anthrop- + -logia -logy

Date: 1593 So we can immediately see how old this word is. As of writing it has been in use for 417 years. The definitions of anthropology are:

1 : the science of human beings; especially : the study of human beings and their ancestors through time and space and in relation to physical character, environmental and social relations, and culture

2 : theology dealing with the origin, nature, and destiny of human beings

I am a Japanthropologist, the first of a kind but there are potentially many others. We are the ones actually in the field. Any true anthropologist worth his academic salt must actually live with the ‘tribes’ he ‘studies’. We Japanthropologists eat, sleep, pray and play with the Japanese. We speak the language, we know the hidden rules. We cannot learn much about the real Japan in universities or colleges so we came here to experience Japan, to actually live within its very peculiar confines.

I have thus literally moved through time and space in my ‘study’ of these human beings called Japanese. I have met the ancestors too. I am deeply familiar with the environment, the physical character of the land, the complex web of social relations and I live and breathe culture 24 hours a day. I am a Japanthropologist for sure.

And my mission is to share several decades of such experience with you for a singular purpose. It is one that actually relates to part of the theological definition in Webster’s : the destiny of human beings.

That purpose is to uncover the amazing secret of how Japanese can live in such profound harmony. For it is clear to me as a cultural anthropologist (one by default) that we can have no destiny without harmony. Secret is a badly overused word I realize but in this case its use is merited. There really is a secret to harmony. It is blatantly obvious that most of the rest of the world cannot live in harmony. Japanese do. Every day.

With a massively dense population on extremely limited land the Japanese have a track record in harmony that is hard to beat and even harder to understand. That is why I am writing a book called simply, The Japanthropologist. It is a novel. I do not consider myself a scholar. More of a highly curious traveler who got shipwrecked by the allure of Japan..

And so we begin.