The Icelandic Canadian - 01.09.2004, Side 19

Vol. 59 #1
THE ICELANDIC CANADIAN
17
there, from the cedars and pines that we are
familiar with on Vancouver Island, to bam-
boo and innumerable varieties that we have
never seen. Iceland, of course, at the other
extreme, has lots of lush green grass and
lots of sheep to eat it, but not much more in
the way of vegetation. In fact, it is the near
absence of trees, not their variety, that is so
striking. Then there is the fact that Japan's
is an ancient civilization, part of the spread
of man from further south towards the
east, out of Africa and on into Siberia and
then Alaska. Iceland is at the extreme end
of man's other migration route, from
Africa to the north and west. Far from
being an ancient cradle of civilization, it
could well be the last habitable area on
earth that humans populated, having been
settled not much more than 1000 years ago.
One final comparison that could be
made regards the languages spoken on
these islands. The grammar of Icelandic is
notoriously complicated, but writing it is
very easy since words are written phoneti-
cally, so that with few exceptions, words
are spelled as they sound. Japanese pro-
vides (once again) the morrow image, since
its' grammar is extremely simple but writ-
ing the language is not. It involves the use
of thousands of Chinese characters with
Japanese suffixes and particles, all of which
must be learned individually. Thus,
Icelandic is difficult to speak but easy to
read or write, while Japanese is easy to
speak but very difficult to read or write. In
keeping with our pattern, English falls
neatly between the other two on the scale
of difficulty, both when speaking and writ-
ing the language.
So many things fit into our pattern of
coincidence, but what is it that shapes them
into a synchronicity? What is the message
that makes the coincidence meaningful? To
me the message is that no matter how dif-
ferent we may appear to be at first glance,
in reality we are much more alike than we
know, and we're all tied together with
numerous threads that at first we're proba-
bly unaware of. That seems to hold true for
the two extremes of the scale we've been
looking at, because Iceland and Japan have
much more in common than first meets the
eye.
Look at these two countries, where
everyone seems to eat fish almost daily.
This practice seems to do the inhabitants
some good, since they have almost identical
figures for life expectancy, the highest in
the world. Also highest in the world are
their figures for literacy, supposedly 99%
for Japan and 100% for Iceland. Look also
at these two peoples who enjoy natural hot
baths so much, and enjoy such an abun-
dance of them. Like most Icelandophiles, I
know that the blue lagoon, not far from
Reykjavik, is becoming one of the most
famous new hot spring spas in the world.
However, I was unprepared when I arrived
in Matsuyama, to find that it is home to the
oldest and most famous of the hundreds of
Japanese spas, with a history of close to
3000 years! To be sure, both countries
share the benefits of natural hot water, as
well as the dangers posed by volcanic activ-
ity, which is of course the source of all that
heat. Come to think of it, how many places
in this world have, in recent years, had new
islands forming in clouds of steam and ash
off their shores? These two have. Then take
a look at the national sports of Japan and
Iceland. Sumo wrestling and glima
wrestling? You've got to be kidding. The
one looks almost like a negative image of
the other.
But the most striking of the threads
that join these two extremes together in my
New World consciousness is that between
two representations of their founding fig-
ures. That thread is like the arrow straight
line across the map from the one to the
other, through the heart of the third island,
my new world. On the coast of Shikoku,
stands a statue of Ryoma Sakamoto, the
revolutionary samurai who led his coun-
trymen into the modern era.
On the coast of Iceland, stands a statue