Anthropological Approach to Vulnerability and Major Hazards - Vulnerability of Coastal Ecosystems and Adaptation - page 298

droplets form fractal details in the form of claws, which together make
up an immense wave. This threatens to engulf two canoes in which 20
tiny Japanese fishermen lie, still gripping their oars. An effect of
perspective adds a cosmic dimension to these boats in danger of being
wrecked: Mount Fuji can be distinguished in the distance; an ancestral
symbol of the permanence of Japanese culture, it appears, too, to be in
the process of being dragged into the heart of the waves. In this
famous print by the painter Hokusai, the Japanese world is considered
as an ensemble where whatever disturbs a microcosm (the individuals
in their boats) also threatens the macrocosm (the geographic). This
principle of correspondance between the micro and the macro (of
which we have shown evidence in the previous case) is represented
here on the brink of sinking “under an enormous wave offshore from
Kanagawa” (litteral translation from the original title). The print
represents a situation of impermanence (in Japanese mu ), where the
life of man compared to Mount Fuji appears as similar to that of the
petals of a cherry in the face of the spring wind or as the finest
droplets of this immense wave in the face of the swell.
The formal beauty of this work alone could have sufficed to ensure
its diffusion at a museographical and academic level. But it is as an
emblematic symbol of tsunamis that it has only recently, in the mass
media and on digital networks, undergone its most significant
diffusion. Today, it is one of the most well-known prints in the world,
and when we speak of a tsunami, it is usually this image that comes to
mind. Yet, “Under the wave of Kanagawa” does not show a tsunami.
A shift in interpretation has been introduced between what Hokusai
has shown (a “large wave”, in the Bay of Tokyo, offshore from the
city of Kanagawa) and the mediatic use that we know of this image
today (as an iconic symbol of tsunamis).
This shift reveals a major cultural difference regarding the
relationship of a tidal wave with natural disasters in general. To really
understand this difference, it is sensible to compare the two words
presumed to mean a single phenomenon: “tidal wave” and tsunami .
This homology is not self-evident. We will explain. First, in what way