From Ambassador

Today, I would like to share with you a true story I heard from a young Icelandic man currently studying at the University of Iceland.

Ever since he was small, he has somehow been attracted to other cultures. Especially, a Japanese movie “Princess Mononoke”, which he watched at the age of eight, made a huge impact on him with its unique perspective on life and beyond. Instantly he was drawn into Manga and Anime and other unique traditions and cultures of Japan such as mythology and Shinto religion.

Eventually, studying in Japan and becoming a bridge between Japan and Iceland became his dream. As a first step of making the dream come true, he entered the Japanese Language and Culture course at the University of Iceland in 2009 and started his Japanese study. But one day tragedy struck – his mother passed away.

With this sad incident, there was no other choice for him but to leave the university, as he had a young brother to take care of, on top of his economic difficulties.

He then started working for Icelandair as a flight attendant and his busy work days gradually kept him away from his dream. One day, while on duty, he met an elderly American lady who had previously lived in Japan as a teacher. The common topic “Japan” connected the two people quickly and the conversation flourished in what limited time they had. They kept in touch after that and started exchanging letters – perhaps, he saw his mother in the American lady.

In his letters, he wrote about how he became interested in the Japanese language and culture, the dream he nurtured, and the situation that forced him to give up the dream. The American lady wrote back telling him of her various experiences in Japan and kept encouraging him by saying “Never give up your dream. Unless you stop pursuing it, your dream will come true!”

With her strong encouragement, he made up his mind to re-enter university in 2018. Since then, he has been putting his efforts into his studies and he has even reached a level to win the first prize at the recent Japanese presentation contest.

Currently he is applying for the Japanese Government (Monbukagakusho:MEXT) Scholarship and looking forward to studying at a university in Japan in the near future. As the Embassy of Japan in Iceland, we would like to support his dream of “becoming a bridge between the two countries”.

I wish to express my sincere respect to his untiring efforts and strong determination to never give up. My deep appreciation also goes to the American lady who kept encouraging him.