The Icelandic Canadian - 01.09.2004, Qupperneq 17

Vol. 59 #1
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
15
Mitsu No Shima
by Glen Jakobson
Being a Western Icelander, I grew up
(like many of us) with an interest in one
day visiting the island of my forefathers.
Luckily, when I graduated from university,
an opportunity presented itself not only to
visit, but to live and study there, when I
was offered a scholarship to the University
of Iceland. I first set foot on the island at
the beginning of the 1980's, and enjoyed
the experience of living abroad so much
that I was quite prepared to apply when
later, a chance to live and work in Japan
came my way. Off I went, and this experi-
ence too, has been positive enough that as I
write, I am still sitting on Shikoku, the
smallest of the four major islands of Japan.
This island I set foot on at the beginning of
the 90's, and I've often been struck by the
similarities, as well as the obvious differ-
ences, between it and Iceland. It has been
my home for the past twelve years, though
I return to Canada often. These days, when
I do return, it's usually to Vancouver
Island, to visit family. I suppose it's there
that I'll end up, when I finally decide to
leave Japan. In short, Iceland is my past,
Shikoku is my present and Vancouver
Island seems likely to be my future. And
that's why I agreed, when it was suggested
that I should write something to compare
them. It’s also the reason for the title above,
which in Japanese means simply, "three
islands."
When I started to consider this ques-
tion, what struck me first was that the three
of them are so neatly arranged on a map of
the world (at least the version common
here), from east to west and north to south,
like uniformly plotted points on a graph.
Japan is at the lower left, Iceland at the
upper right, and Vancouver Island some-
where in the middle. What I found more
fascinating though, was how many other
factors associated with these places seemed
to fit into the same pattern. Take, for exam-
ple, such a basic as the size of the people.
The average height here in Japan is not, let's
face it, at the upper end of the scale, even
when compared to neighbours such as
China and Korea. I'm 6' 3", and in Japan it
is extremely rare to meet a local of the same
size. In Iceland, however, despite the fact
that there were not the same numbers of
people around, it was an everyday occur-
rence. In fact, when I first arrived, two
cousins (different families) dropped over to
visit. I was the smallest. Of course, if one
were to go to Vancouver Island, you'd find
that the average height falls somewhere in
between. The pattern seems reproduced in
the people.
Other aspects of peoples' appearance
seem to go the same way. The Japanese are
uniformly black of hair and brown eyed,
while Icelanders are as blonde and blue
eyed as any people on the face of the earth.
Vancouver Islanders are at neither one
extreme or the other, but, on average, nei-
ther as dark as the Japanese nor as fair as
the Icelanders.
What about the mindset of these peo-
ple? The Japanese are often characterized as
being group oriented, a "consensus soci-
ety. " As students, although they score very
well on math/science type tests for which a
recognized right answer or method can be
studied, they are often at a loss when asked
to give their own opinions on specific top-
ics or issues. They seem to want to be told
what the correct opinion should be. How
do Icelanders compare? They are probably
best described by the title of Laxness'
famous novel, "Independent People "...a
conglomerate of strong-willed free think-
ing individuals, who aren't shy about
expressing their opinions at all. In fact, at
times one might even be forgiven for taking
some of them to be positively "opinionat-