Jeju Island, South Korea

April 21-25, 2024

I’ve looked forward to visiting Jeju Island since reading The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See. It’s a historical fiction novel spanning the decades from Japanese colonial rule, to the Korean War, to the modern era. While the story about 2 girls and their friendship is really good, what fascinated me was the modern history of this little island, and the haenyeo.

Haenyeo (sea women) are female divers who make a living by free diving for sea creatures on the ocean floor. People have been diving on Jeju for millennia, and no one really knows how it became an exclusively female thing. The story goes that colonial rulers imposed differential taxes on male and female divers, so it became more lucrative for women to be the primary laborers of the family. It doesn’t seem this story has much historical merit, nor the claim that all the men died at war so women took on the role of primary earner. Regardless, by the 18th century, diving was the work of women.

Girls start training as haenyeo around the age of 11, beginning in shallow water and learning the techniques to free dive deeper and deeper. They can tolerate incredible levels of hypercapnia and cold, holding their breaths and plunging to depths of up to 66ft to collect abalone, conch, octopus, sea squirt, sea urchins, and other sea food. We visited the Haenyeo Museum, and marveled at the thin cotton clothes they used to wear before the introduction of wetsuits. Imagine diving into the ocean with nothing but glass goggles, fins, a belt of weights, and a knife.

It’s little wonder that it’s a disappearing tradition, as women understandably choose less dangerous, less difficult things to do. Most haenyeo now are well into their 70s and 80s, some of whom are apparently saltily still serving up abalone porridge and raw sea squirt. We watched as one wizened haenyeo threw down soju with her breakfast, served us our lunch, and then pointedly told us we ate too much. We cleared the plates because it was so delicious! Though to be fair, our well insulated and pampered American bodies probably would not survive a day at sea, much less make it to the bottom of the ocean and back.

While the Haenyeo Museum was the highlight of my Jeju trip, we did also summit Mount Hallasan, the highest peak in South Korea. Gwaneumsa Trail is a hiking trail (permit reservation only), 11 miles out and back, that takes you straight up the mountain for 4500 feet. Koreans are not fans of switchbacks, apparently. It was stairs upon stairs, a thigh and lung burner on the way up, and a knee and back jolter on the way down. I’d be lying if I said it was a pleasant experience, even if it was entertaining to overhear many a couple bickering on the way down (“this was YOUR idea”). I forgot to mention that Jeju Island is a honeymoon destination for Koreans, and I bet many naively think this would be a romantic thing to do, hike Hallasan. Memorable, humbling, fortifying, a true relationship tester for sure.

It makes sense that with centuries of outside rule and taxation, and a unique matricentric and communal culture, the people of Jeju would be drawn to ideals of communism and self-governance. As I went up the endless stairs to the top of Hallasan, I listened to a podcast about the Korean War. Episode 4 was about Jeju, the “Red Island,” which was the site of the Jeju uprising in 1948-1949. It was crushed by the South Korean government. While war is always brutal, this was notable for the extremely viscous and violent way civilians were massacred by their own kin and government. By the end, 10% of Jeju’s population had been killed, and the very existence of the uprising was officially censored and repressed by South Korea until very recently. US Military forces, in control of Jeju at the beginning of the uprising, are not innocent. Though Americans did not do the killing, it is inescapable that Americans were there, aware and enabling, ironically allowing the obliteration of a people who were fighting for self-determination.

This island – with its proud and no-nonsense haenyeo, its Hallasan and the ridiculous stairs, its uncomfortably recent violent history which is still difficult to speak of much less memorialize, it’s beauty – is a gem. I will remember the Jeju tangerines, the lovely beach with views of Seongsan Ilchulbong (Sunrise Peak) that I couldn’t climb because I was wobbling with muscle cramps after Hallasan, the barbecued pork, the martinis by the ocean.

May 19, 2024