What you have in your hands is a book about animism, or the idea that everything in the universe is a living, sentient creature with tastes, likes and dislikes. That’s normally stuff for anthropologists, and I am not one. I am just an Italian who has lived most of his adult life in Japan and who wants to understand a culture that is familiar, yet still basically alien to him.
Trying to make sense of Japan was and is a profoundly personal effort for me. Anything I figure out has immediate consequences on my relationship with my Japanese friends. Curiosity and a need to make sense of my own experience forced me to become a student of anthropology, and these pages were born first of all for me. I hope they help you too.
