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There is an occurrence successful the Netflix play When Life Gives You Tangerines wherever a pistillate dives into the oversea and brings backmost a drawback of abalone (sea snails), which she says volition provender her family. The pistillate is simply a haenyeo. Haenyeo, oregon “women of the sea”, person been recorded arsenic acold backmost arsenic the 17th period and are unsocial to the land of Jeju successful South Korea, wherever they food sustainably, diving clip and again connected a azygous enactment to bring backmost shellfish and seaweed.
Yet the scene, acceptable successful the 1960s, simply wouldn’t hap today, says Myeonghyo Go, a haenyeo who lives successful the colony of Iho-dong connected Jeju. “The seaweeds present are disappearing, and seaweed is the nutrient for abalone. Because we don’t person the seaweeds, we don’t person abalone,” she says.
Myeonghyo is not lone a haenyeo, she is simply a national idiosyncratic and environmentalist. In her 40s, she represents the caller procreation of Korea’s accepted divers and her ngo is to alteration the mode the women are seen by the extracurricular world.
Haenyeo are 1 of the country’s astir celebrated taste exports, with Unesco officially inscribing their enactment connected the typical database of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity due to the fact that of their absorption connected sustainability. Yet their aboriginal is astatine a crossroads. Most of them present are implicit 70, truthful the nationalist authorities and the Jeju authorities are keen for a caller procreation to travel forward.
When the provincial authorities (Jeju is simply a self-governing state wrong Korea) made its exertion to Unesco it described however the haenyeo represent “the island’s quality and people’s spirit”, yet Myeonghyo feels the resulting fascination with the haenyeo has not ever been beneficial to the women’s future.
“I consciousness uncomfortable erstwhile stories astir the haenyeo are shared,” she says. “They [those who are telling the stories] instrumentality everything that is truly important retired and lone amusement definite aspects of our lives.”
She adds: “There is simply a celebrated haenyeo choir and if there’s an authoritative lawsuit they are often invited to sing bully songs. But the haenyeo contented of singing unneurotic started from erstwhile things became tiring and hard [during work]. So our songs are not joyous, per se, and what you are seeing is not truly authentic.”
The fascination with the haenyeo has peaked successful the past fewer years arsenic portion of the frenzy implicit Korean culture, kicked disconnected by the emergence of K-pop. In 2022, different K-drama, Our Blues, besides followed the lives of the oversea women, and past twelvemonth a documentary, The Last of the Sea Women, generated publicity for Apple TV. This month, the BBC volition amusement the archetypal programme it has made successful Korea (in collaboration with broadcaster JTBC), Deep Dive Korea. It follows Korean exemplary and histrion Song Ji-hyo arsenic she attempts to go a haenyeo.
Myeonghyo wants to usage the popularity of the haenyeo to make a schoolhouse to amended radical astir water ecology and make a squad of national scientists.
“When I consciousness we [the haenyeo] are being used, it utilized to marque maine consciousness rather lonely,” she says. “Then I started to alteration my caput and think, tin I usage this involvement to archer the existent communicative instead? For me, that is simply a communicative that draws connected a agelong contented of protecting the weak, some successful our assemblage and successful the earthy world.”
She says that the haenyeo person a contented called halmeoni bada, which translates arsenic Grandma ocean. It is simply a designated country of shallow h2o wherever the oldest haenyeo spell and catch. “So we person this mode of caring for aged radical and the weak,” she says. “And past we person communal diving days erstwhile oregon doubly a month, wherever immoderate we drawback we disagreement arsenic betwixt each the haenyeo, careless of property oregon experience.”
The haenyeo besides enactment with the water erstwhile they fish, truthful they don’t dive during a shellfish’s breeding season, for example, but harvest seaweed instead. They besides debar catching conch if they are smaller than 7cm to springiness the taxon a accidental to reproduce earlier being harvested.
“We past connected collecting and selling the seafood, but we are besides protecting them,” she says. “We amusement however humans and quality tin coexist.”
Myeonghyo volunteers with the Paran water national subject centre, a comparatively caller section NGO that employs national subject to papers the changes successful the seas astir Jeju and uses the accusation to lobby the authorities for enhanced marine protection.
She needed to beryllium taught to dive with scuba cogwheel to papers the water flora, and since doing truthful says she has noticed large, hard corals appearing alongside Jeju’s accepted brushed corals. These are much typically recovered successful tropical waters and person lone started appearing successful specified numbers successful the past 5 years erstwhile the h2o somesthesia astir the southbound broadside of Jeju has risen markedly, reaching a caller grounds precocious past year, according to information from the National Institute of Fisheries Science. The aforesaid country has besides experienced a crisp diminution successful seaweed, outbreaks of jellyfish and greenish algae, and the melting of brushed corals.
Sanghoon Yoon, an advisor astatine Paran, whose parent was a haenyeo, says the older procreation are not ever keen to rise their voices astir the environment. “Yet the water is changing rapidly and they are the archetypal ones to witnesser those changes and truthful erstwhile we spell and speech to them connected a one-to-one basis, they commencement to unfastened their hearts more. My anticipation is that the younger procreation volition pb connected this alteration successful what the haenyeo basal for.”
Before she tin commencement connected the remainder of the world, however, Myeonghyo has a situation to tackle person to location – her mum.
Sixty-nine-year-old Chunsuk Son became a haenyeo astatine 17, pursuing successful the footsteps of her mother, but she doesn’t spot wherefore her girl has to bash the same.
“When I educated her, I wanted her to person a due occupation similar joining the civilian service,” she says. “We older women don’t privation our daughters to beryllium haenyeo, but Myeonghyo keeps saying that she wants to beryllium 1 successful bid to support the water and to assistance to marque wherever we unrecorded a amended place. I cognize she has a antithetic purpose [as a haenyeo] and a antithetic direction. In immoderate case, she doesn’t perceive to me.”
Additional reporting by Eunhae Grace Jung
English (US) ·