65° - 01.09.1967, Blaðsíða 6

answer if phrased so, though many would con-
sider it an invasion of their privacy.
The reasons people have for residing in Ice-
land are quite different from those of visitors.
Most are simply brought as husbands or wives,
or have come in the hopes of making a living,
and the beauty of the landscape has no more
effect on their adjustment than on the daily lives
of Icelanders.
Before a foreign-born or “adapted” Icelander
can answer whether he likes Iceland, he must first
examine himself and his desires for a worthwhile
life. To say glibly, “I find the climate cold, the
landscape bare, the people stiff and a job im-
possible to find” is to tell only a part of the
picture. Yet how can the question be answered
understandably ?
Coming from the suburbs of New England,
Massachusetts, U.S.A., I suffered no lack of clean
air, so the fresh air of Iceland makes less impres-
sion on me than on one from midtown New York
or Los Angeles, but it does not mean Iceland’s
air is not clean and fresh. Coming from a seasonal
climate, I enjoyed the slow turning of the winter
into spring and the summer into golden autumn,
as well as the snowy winters and hot summers,
but this does not mean the Iceland’s seasons are
unappreciated. By contrast, however, they are not
so dramatic. New England is heavily wooded
country, so it is not opinion hut fact that by con-
trast the Icelandic landscape is bare. But it does
not mean it is not beautiful in its own way.
These sensory things, however, have little to
do with a worthwhile life. More important is con-
genial people, and that always varies with taste.
There are many lively, responsive and intellectual-
ly minded people in Iceland, but perhaps fewer
than would be found in larger or less northerly
lands. It certainly does not mean that all Ice-
landers are staid, unemotional and preoccupied
with daily life. Nor are Icelanders grim after ac-
quaintance, but the way of acquaintanceship is
different. Even to know the ancestry of a new-
comer is meaningless to the Icelander. To be
Helga Helgadottir of BorgarfjorSur might imply
respected and honest kinsmen of middling wealth
and poet’s stock, though Helga herself might be
flightly and dishonest and unartistic. A newcomer
may be a Roumanian businessman, but he cannot
say he is respected, honest, wealthy or artistic
without seeming conceited. In Iceland he has no
recognizaable background or other than visual
attributes until they emerge through the years.
He must be born anew in Iceland. In job hunting,
also it is not enough to state superior training
and experience — the employer himself may not
have a background enabling him to assess such
qualifications and would rather hire a geneo-
logically defined Icelander whether or not he is
qualified for the job in any special way. The age-
old emphasis on family rather than ability still
holds. To feel “unappreciated” in this respect is
a fact rather than a complaint, but, thankfully, a
fact which is changing.
It is necessary to remember that slowness in “ad-
justment” is not wholly controllable. A person of
Latin temperament whose culture is based on
English traditions will always be slower to “ad-
just” to Iceland than a phlegmatic introvert whose
culture is northern European — the basic dif-
ferences are greater. Another point is that the
early years mold a person indelibly and are not
easily forgotten — they are part of one. The third,
and surprising point, is that in order to adjust,
one must have something to which to adjust.
Iceland is no longer a relatively fixed culture
with a static pattern. It is, in fact, in an extremely
fluid state of changing values and fluctuating
behaviour. One cannot adjust to modern Iceland
without first discovering its framework. The in-
definitness of this framework is at once its
frustration and its challenge.
But even with congenial people, there is the
barrier of language. Even a good knowledge of
Icelandic is not enough with which to com-
municate deeply, and for one whose professional
field is communication, this is indeed a sturdy
barrier.
Pearl Buck in “My Several Lives” says of her
move to America after twenty years in China,
that a transplanted person must put his roots
down firmly and quickly in the new soil or he
will forever be rootless. And this is it. One must
find a corner in which to be useful. The feeling,
the knowledge of being able to give to a com-
munity, of having one’s gifts valued and accepted
are most important of all. But one must first learn
what to give. Here, as in love, one cannot give
what he wants, but what the other requires. To
do this one must grow to understand what is
meaningful and of value to the individual and to
the Icelandic community. Learning these things
are the means by which the foreign-born adapts
himself so that he may eventually he “adopted”
by the native-born and gain his own place as an
integral part of Iceland.
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