I’m reading a ~painful book about the Jeju people as depicted by Lisa See in “The Island of Sea Women”. While the story likely goes even deeper (like how and why did they leave the Korean mainland), this one is and was worth telling.
More than being self-sufficient island community – they had enough to trade (before their wars) and no one went hungry. With their efforts, they had enough to to give their ‘best’ to Russian and Japanese markets- though the latter imposed themselves.
Despite their ~brutal (windy) existence they rallied and were resilient painful as it was. How did they do this? For sure I don’t “know”, I’ve only read Ms. See’s books, who researched and interviewed though I have visited Nepal, another “poor” country rich in spirit.
In spite of their ‘ordinary’ travails of severe wind and weather, they keep their traditions of honoring the land, the water, and all the people in their collective – deceased and alive (no matter their abilities). They listened to the voice of their shaman who channels forces of nature and human spirit.
The Haenyeo diving elders, always women, with time on their side and experience of understanding the moon and her tides, speak first and make the decisions. They are the “deciders”. They deliberate and don’t rush decisions; they pay attention to ‘signs’.
These divers tend(ed) both wet and dry land – without over-harvesting. There are a few of them left. They adapted to harsh climates even going to Russia to dive for them in winter for good money.
Even though they were “illiterate” -meaning they weren’t able to read books written by men, they sang and answered poetically several times a day – until soldiers forbid it. Some made charcoal rubbings to memorialize events.
These diving women follow through on their guidelines – including when to retire (at 55) after which point they collect and sustain more passively – by what the sea gives them rather than by choosing and taking.
Despite the severity of their existence, their diets were clean – mainly millet, sweet potato, seaweed and sea cucumber. Smooth shiny rice was a treat for shrines and high holidays when they might also have a morsel of roast pork.
Before toilets, they used pig-do, fed by their poo, as fertilizers. So yes, they were an example of complete recycling.
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A third of the book depicts the atrocities Japanese, mainland Koreans, and the Americans inflicted on them in the 1950s and 1960s during WWII and the Korean War. The latter destruction and executions were done in the name of “fighting communism”. The Americans, in particular favored a scorched earth policy.
With successive brutal puppet dictators, put in by the Americans, most of the male population was decimated after being tortured and brutalized- and no they didn’t spare women either. Their minions soldiers uprooted and executed the mountain peoples.
The diving women and others starved when their fields were burned and weren’t allowed to dive. They were forced to eat their dogs. Their starvation was man-made not anything of “higher forces”.
Then, Russians and Americans split Korea’s mainland in two. Families have been divided since into North and South Koreas.
May it be so I one day get to visit to pay homage to their island’s spirit -a big (dormant) volcano they named Grandmother Seolmundae with her numerous lava tubes and cinder cones. I hope to share my essay with Ms. See too.
