Jeju Island's Women Divers

We arrived to a drizzly Jeju Island pretty much on time but had to be back on the ship no later than 2:30 for a sail away at 3:00.  South Koreans call this the "Honeymoon Island", because if you remember from the last post it was one of the few places they could "get away" to for many years.  

Jeju is a large island situated at the south end of the Korean Peninsula in the Korean Strait and has a fairly rugged geography as you'll see later.  It's location puts it in the Yellow Sea, East China Sea and Sea of Japan all at once.

Surprisingly, this island of 700,000 got about 25 million visitors per year prior to the Covid pandemic, making tourism its major industry.  Those numbers have been down the last few years but are working their way up again, although even during during Covid South Koreans loved coming here.

The feel here was much more small town/city after the hustle and bustle of Busan.  Nor was there the construction and appearance of wealth like we had seen the day before.

After tourism, a mainstay of the economy of Jeju Island is tangerines.   They are so well known for them here that it's sometimes called the Tangerine Island, and as you can see they even have the fruit on the doors of some taxis.

There were many small groves along the side of the road that were visible as we drove.

Many were behind the traditional volcanic rock fences that were ubiquitous throughout the island.  These outdoor orchards produced less expensive tangerines.

The prime tangerines are grown in greenhouses like these.  Yami said those grown here are much sweeter and juicier than those grown outdoors.  He also told us that new varieties are introduced every year but that usually only one or two of those has a flavor people like enough that it gets introduced into the groves for production.

This picture is one where I'm really wishing I could get video clips to work on the blog.  These people were standing by the side of the road campaigning for a political candidate, doing a short dance routine on the sidewalk as the cars drove by. There were others who were holding signs and waving across the street from them, all working for the same candidate.  We were at a stoplight watching them and it was great fun.  I do have video so ask me about it sometime.

Only reason I took this picture was because the karate studio made me think of Nolan. 

It's always windy at Jeju so the cherry blossoms don't last long, especially when it's rainy as well.  We saw several places where it looked like there was pink snow on the ground.

It took us a while but we finally arrived at Cherry Blossom Lane, where despite there only being 70% of the blossoms still intact, the sight was gorgeous.  My thanks to LeaAnn for sharing this picture with me.

A couple more views here of the volcanic rock walls.

I had to wonder how many back breaking hours of labor that it took to build these and how long they've all been around.

Jeju was not an island that we could see a lot of in a few hours so after the cherry blossoms we determined our major destination of the day would be the museum of the women divers who are known as the haenyeo.

Welcome to the Haenyeo Museum!  Historically the men would fish the rough and dangerous waters that surround the island while the women would take care of most everything else.  Water is at a premium on Jeju, plus with the rocky soil they would only have a small. kitchen garden.  The women would harvest most of what their families ate from the sea.

The first mention of the haenyeo is from the 17th century and there are still some who carry on the tradition today.  As we entered the museum we were treated by artwork depicting the haenyeo.

It included this sculpture diving from the ceiling.

The museum was really well done with displays in multiple languages, enabling you to get a small feel for how these women lived.

One of the displays was an actual home of a woman diver whose children had donated it after her death.  Here you can see the thatched roof made of plant stalks that would have had to be replaced each year.  The walls were the volcanic rock again, mixed with earth.

Homes were very small, just an eating and cooking area, 

plus a small space for sleeping.  Bedding would have had to have been put away like this every day.

Outside the kitchen would have been a platform for clay pots for storing food, one would definitely have been filled with kimchi.

The display even showed some of the foods they would have eaten, fake just so you know.

Their diet would have included things like octopus pancakes on the left and sea urchin soup on the right.

The house also had an elevated floor so that this fireplace on the outside could send heat underneath to warm the house.

These are the types of things the women would have worn in the frigid waters in earlier years.  They would have stayed under water for three to five minutes at a time.  The white "swimsuits" on the center right are called mulot.  It wasn't until the 1970's that they began wearing dry suits.  I can't imagine what a difference that would have made temperature wise, but then they had to start wearing weight belts to offset the buoyancy.

These are samples of tools they would have used to cut seaweed, or pry abalone, clams or other creatures from the rocks beneath the sea.  They might also use them to hook an octopus.  It was an incredibly dangerous way to work and to get provisions for meals.

As they came out of the water or went in from shore, they would carry their buoys and the nets containing their harvest.  Behind a rock wall area there would always be a group of women with a fire going so that they could warm themselves, and also quickly change out of wet clothes.

Usually the haenyeo would stay out for 30 minutes to an hour, diving and harvesting, coming to the surface to breathe and then doing it all over again.  Sometimes they wore masks like these, other times it was goggles.

They learned to breathe in a way that let them stay down for so long.  It took years to become a senior haenyeo but they would begin as girls and often continue to dive into their 70's.

This is a replica of one of the small boats that they might have used.

Here's a group of more recent divers heading into the sea.

It's an incredible tradition and occupation that at one point had over 15,000 card carrying women divers.  Now it's believed that there are only about 3,000 left.

These would have been the types of buoys with nets that stayed on the surface for them to put their harvest in.

Because they were so proficient at what they did the haenyeo were sometimes recruited to go abroad to earn money by harvesting in other countries for a time throughout east Asia.

I climbed a small hill beside the museum to get a view of the sea behind it, not knowing if I'd have another chance to see where these amazing women would have worked.

I absolutely loved this museum and would recommend the book I mentioned if you'd like to learn more.

Outside the museum was another of the rock walls with the lovely yellow flowers growing on it and around it.  I saw a lot of these.

One of the best known spots on Jeju Island is Sunrise Peak so we went over there to take a peek before going to lunch.

Imagine our excitement when we actually saw haenyeo out in the water!  We were too far away to see what they were harvesting but it was so cool to have learned about them and then to see them in action.

There were no boats on the water here so we had to assume they went in from the beach.  We were all wearing jackets but they were out there in 60 degree water diving.  You wouldn't catch Karl diving in water that cold!

We wondered if some of these women were learning how to dive.   Yami told us that there is interest in learning so that the divers don't become a thing of the past.  These photos were as zoomed in as I could get of heads bobbing and the occasional jack knife where flippers went straight up into the air.

There was another group over towards Sunrise Peak.

Waters looked a little more inviting over there but still cold on that rocky shore.

One last photo of the divers here.  I just had so much respect for these women and their dangerous job, especially when I remembered those who had done it in order to just feed their families.

Sunrise Peak is a unique geological spot as well.  It was created from layers upon layers of volcanic ash and is studied by geologists from around the world.

In this zoom of the peak you can see a bit of the mountain's layering.

Near where we watched the divers was this statue with the pig so I took this photo for Melanie, who loves pigs.

One last photo of the divers!

I had to take a photo of one of these "Nice to CU" convenience stores that were all over Jeju.

Our last stop of the day was at a restaurant to have some Korean BBQ.  Although we had had some the day before no one else in the group had had it yet so we were game to try some again.

The restaurant, whose name I didn't get, was right by the beach.  You can see it really didn't look very warm that day, but we had a great view out our window.

Jeju is known for its "black pork", a special breed that originated on the island.

So today, along with our salad, kimchi, radish, peppers, pickled garlic, and bean sprouts,

we were barbecuing pork.

It was delicious!  I was shown that you are supposed to eat it on a lettuce leaf that you put salad on first so that it doesn't wilt the lettuce, then add some sauce, then the pork, and then begin to wrap it up, sort of like a burrito.

The pork pieces are bite size but once you wrap it up in a whole lettuce leaf that is quite a mouthful to put in your mouth all at once.  I tried my best. Definitely delish!

I also tried a bite using a sesame leaf, which had a little bit of a lemony taste.  I really do try to be adventurous with my food on this trip.  Kimchi here had some fish sauce mixed in that I didn't like as well as others we'd had.  Great fun trying new things with Steve and Cathy!

And to top it all off, there were more haenyeo diving near this boat that we could see out our window as we ate.  It was an excellent way to spend our day at Jeju!