The Island of Sea Women

When Young-sook and Mi-ja are twenty-one, they take seasonal diving jobs near Vladivostok, Russia, to earn extra income. They get rooms in a boardinghouse for Korean haenyeo and spend their Sundays making charcoal rubbings of the local sights. On one occasion, two Russian sailors buy them ice cream cones. That night on their sleeping mats, the girls speculate about getting married. 

Mi-ja assumes no matchmaker or relative will want to arrange a match for her because she is the daughter of a collaborator. She wants to marry someone local because Mi-ja fears moving away from Young-sook. “‘More important, if I marry out, we’d no longer be together,’ she said, pulling me even closer until nothing could separate us, not even a piece of paper. ‘We must stay together always’” (100). 

When the diving season in Russia ends, the girls return to Jeju bearing gifts for family and future husbands. After disembarking from the ferry on the island, they are alarmed by the number of Japanese soldiers lurking about and eyeing them. A Korean man offers to help arrange their baggage transport. Young-sook is immediately attracted to his handsomeness and speculates that she would like to marry a man like that. The stranger introduces himself as Lee Sang-mun. He explains that he helps his father manage the local cannery, which means his family is in collaboration with the Japanese.

Before transferring the girls’ luggage to a waiting truck, Sang-mun asks where they both live. Young-sook volunteers the information, hoping he will come to court her. Once at home, Young-sook learns that her youngest brother has died and that the Japanese have conscripted two of her other brothers. Only one remains at home, and he is in hiding.

Three days after her return, Young-sook’s grandmother announces that she has arranged marriages for both Young-sook and Mi-ja. As is traditional, she won’t disclose who the grooms are. The following day, Young-sook meets Sang-mun and his father on their way to arrange a match with Mi-ja’s guardians. Mi-ja later confesses that she doesn’t want to marry him but can’t get out of the arrangement. She also doesn’t want to be separated from her best friend. Back at home, Young-sook’s grandmother comforts her by saying that her own fiancé will be arriving on the ferry the next day.  

The following morning, Young-sook and Mi-ja hurry to the harbor to see who’s come to the island. The only likely prospect turns out to be Jun-bu, the son of diving chief, Do-saeng. He used to be Young-sook’s playmate as a child and is now studying at a Japanese university to become a teacher. The next day, the prospective bridegroom and his mother arrive to negotiate the match with Young-sook’s grandmother. The girl will be expected to go and live at Do-saeng’s compound.

A short time later, both Mi-ja and Young-sook are married. Mi-ja is taken off to the city and is miserable at the thought of being parted from Young-sook. The latter discovers that she actually likes her husband, and they develop a close bond with one another. Young-sook receives family pressure to become pregnant before her husband returns to school.

Although female offspring are valued highly among haenyeo communities, a boy is needed to perform ancestor worship ceremonies. Mi-ja faces the same pressure to become pregnant with a son since her husband is about to go on a year-long business trip. Her mother-in-law pays for her to spend some time in Young-sook’s village, praying to a fertility goddess. During this time, Young-sook and Mi-ja are briefly reunited. Young-sook thinks, “These few weeks had been a gift, but now we were to be separated again. I felt lonely and alone already” (142).

By autumn, the diving chief of another collective comes to the village to recruit divers for a nine-month stint in Vladivostok. Young-sook is eager to go. Much to her surprise, she finds that Mi-ja has joined the same diving team. Both women discover that they are pregnant, and both give birth during the diving expedition. In June, Mi-ja has a son whom she names Yo-chan. Eight days later, Young-sook gives birth to a daughter named Min-lee.

The divers continue their work, with the babies resting in cradles on the fishing boat. When the women return in July, the atmosphere on Jeju is tense because the Japanese are losing the war, and the Americans might bomb the island on their way to Japan. Despite the fears of war, Do-saeng is thrilled to have a granddaughter. Young-sook says, “She hung a golden rope with pine branches on the front door to let our neighbors know the joyful news that I’d given birth to a daughter who would help provide food for our family one day” (152).

Around this same time, Jeju hears news of the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the Japanese surrender. Korea is now subject to other colonizers. Young-sook says, “We thought we were free, but so far the only difference in our lives here on Jeju was that the Japanese flag was lowered, and the American flag was raised. One colonizer had been replaced by another” (154).

In September, Jun-bu returns from the university in Japan and takes a teaching job in Bukchon. Young-sook arranges to move there, and Do-saeng asks her to care for the brain-damaged Yu-ri, who never recovered from her near-drowning years earlier. Young-sook agrees to take Do-saeng’s daughter with her, and the little party moves into the teacher’s house in town.

Young-sook attempts to be a housewife while Jun-bu supports the family with his teacher’s pay, but she chafes at the lifestyle change. She tells her husband, “Being a haenyeo is who I am. There are parts of it I need. I long for the water and the triumph I feel when I find something valuable. I miss the company of women” (159). Jun-bu teases about being tied to the tail of a skirt if he allows his wife to work, but agrees that she should go back to the sea. The couple then arranges for an old woman to watch over the baby and Yu-ri during the day.

Young-sook is welcomed into the local diving collective with open arms. Shortly after her return to work, she discovers she is pregnant again. This time, she delivers a boy named Sung-soo. During this time, Young-sook makes an unexpected visit to Mi-ja in Jeju City. Her friend is tense and worried because her own husband has been missing for five months in the Soviet-controlled north.

In the fall, Young-sook returns to her village for the annual harvest festival during which family ancestors are honored. Mi-ja arrives to celebrate it with her and brings the missing Sang-mun. He looks sickly and gaunt after an ordeal endured when he escaped from North Korea. The two friends are able to spend a week together while Sang-mun recovers.