2012 was the critical year in inspiring Charles Sung to create the “Anthropologists for Future” fan page. In that year three individuals and three eye-opening experiences made him realize that there are unlimited possibilities for the application of anthropological knowledge in daily life.
That summer Sung returned to Taiwan and happened to attend a lecture at the Eslite Bookstore by the cultural critic Yang Zhao introducing readers to the classic work Tristes Tropiques by the anthropologist Claude Levi-Strauss. Sung assumed that this apparently dry topic would attract pathetically few enthusiasts, only to discover that there wasn’t an empty seat at the venue.
Sung had never imagined that anthropology could be so interesting to the general public. An idea took root in his mind: “Perhaps there is an important place for anthropology outside of academia.” Then two more experiences over the next six months solidified this notion.
Looking back, Sung describes 2012 as a year that was “light, slim, short, and small.” He encountered a series of concepts that emphasize very personalized sensations—including “mini-trips” and “micro-movies.” For instance, Sung attended a lecture at the Songshan Cultural and Creative Park on the theme of “Travel,” and listened as L-instyle Boutique Travel Services manager Yu Chih-wei and writer Hong Zhenyu discussed how to use the meticulous observational methodology of anthropology in planning each journey. A few days later, at a lecture at Creative Expo Taiwan, Sung heard Hsieh Jung-ya, founder of the Gixia Group (a design consultancy), share his experience of applying anthropological observation in a project to improve the design of an electric rice cooker produced by the Tatung appliance corporation.
With each successful example of the practical application of anthropology, Sung discovered that anthropology can step out of the ivory tower and be linked to individual jobs or businesses, and even community life. Therefore he decided in that year to seek out “anthropologists from all walks of life” and he created the Facebook fan page “Anthropologists for Future.” With the name decided, at the end of the year Sung and some colleagues began their search for people of varied backgrounds with “anthropological sense.”
Once the Facebook page was up and running, Sung launched himself non-stop into the task of dismantling the stereotypes held by people outside the field. In 2013 he gave a number of lectures and seminars. And at the most important annual event for the anthropological community in Taiwan—the conference held by the Taiwan Society for Anthropology and Ethnology in cooperation with the World Council of Anthropological Associations—Sung arranged a special panel on “anthropologists from all walks of life.” He invited experts from a variety of fields to discourse on applications of anthropology in practical life.
The book Anthropologists for Future, published in 2016, was the result of two years of work that Sung invested in traveling around Taiwan and interviewing people with backgrounds related to anthropology. People in the book include the head chef of a Taiwanese-cuisine restaurant, a comic-book illustrator, a dancer, and younger people who have returned from the city to their rural hometowns to promote social enterprises, among many others.
Han Wu, executive director of the year-long event “World Design Capital: Taipei 2016,” is an archetypal example of a practitioner who applies anthropological methods in the field of design. While studying in the US, Wu discovered that many aspects of business operations, such as consumer research and management, can be considered as falling within the scope of anthropology. After returning to Taiwan, in his time as an employee at Flow Incorporated and then after he founded WeCreateLab, he used field survey methods in his work, such as when he shaped emotionally impactful background stories for the well-known tea brands Chun Shui Tang and Lavender Cottage, generating completely new brand value.
Another case in point is Chiu Hsing-wei. Chiu, a young man from Miaoli County who over his career has (among other things) founded the Mountain Lodge Hostel and the Valai café and “country creativity” shop, both located in Miaoli’s Nanzhuang Township, earned a graduate degree in anthropology from National Tsing Hua University in 2013. He has applied what he learned in his anthropological studies in building up his businesses.
Not only are the names and operations of Mountain Lodge and Valai steeped in local anthropological observation and the spirit of local culture, the local magazine Tentioncy—which covers stories large and small from Nanzhuang and addresses not only current events but history and culture too—is also the product of field survey methodologies adapted by its youthful team.
The publication of Anthropologists for Future is just one of many projects that Charles Sung has in mind. In the future, besides continuing to publish essays on his Facebook fan page, he hopes to be able to build on the enthusiasm for the fan page and convert this into a commercial website specializing in production knowledge.
“Anthropologists for Future” started as a website but expanded to live lectures; each one gets a packed house.
