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South Korea’s female freedivers: TV has made stars of the haenyeo but what is their real story?
The craze for Korean culture has brought fame to the ‘women of the sea’, but not always to their benefit. Now they want to reclaim their stories to inspire a new generationThere is an episode in the Netflix drama When Life Gives You Tangerines where a woman dives into the sea and brings back a catch of abalone (sea snails), which she says will feed her family. The woman is a haenyeo. Haenyeo, or “women of the sea”, have been recorded as far back as the 17th century and are unique to the island of Jeju in South Korea, where they fish sustainably, diving time and again on a single breath to bring back shellfish and seaweed.Yet the scene, set in the 1960s, simply wouldn’t happen today, says Myeonghyo Go, a haenyeo who lives in the village of Iho-dong on Jeju. “The seaweeds here are disappearing, and seaweed is the food for abalone. Because we don’t have the seaweeds, we don’t have abalone,” she says. Continue reading...
The craze for Korean culture has brought fame to the ‘women of the sea’, but not always to their benefit. Now they want to reclaim their stories to inspire a new generation
There is an episode in the Netflix drama When Life Gives You Tangerines where a woman dives into the sea and brings back a catch of abalone (sea snails), which she says will feed her family. The woman is a haenyeo. Haenyeo, or “women of the sea”, have been recorded as far back as the 17th century and are unique to the island of Jeju in South Korea, where they fish sustainably, diving time and again on a single breath to bring back shellfish and seaweed.
Yet the scene, set in the 1960s, simply wouldn’t happen today, says Myeonghyo Go, a haenyeo who lives in the village of Iho-dong on Jeju. “The seaweeds here are disappearing, and seaweed is the food for abalone. Because we don’t have the seaweeds, we don’t have abalone,” she says. Continue reading...
