The women dive daily, through
their pregnancies, and even
into their mid-90sfor the family, while the women bring home the money from
their diving and farming. This tradition has advanced the
status of women on the island, and simultaneously fostered
a message of environmental consciousness, promoting
sustainable fishing practices.
Today, the Hae-Nyeo are celebrated as one of Jeju’s most
valued cultural treasures, and the Korean government shows
its appreciation for their unique contributions to Jeju’s culture
by subsidising their gear and granting exclusive rights to trade
in fresh seafood, which they sell to the small restaurants
dotted around the fringes of the island. However, this local
diving industry has fallen victim to industrialisation and rising
pollution in the surrounding waters.
Traditionally, from the age of 11, when girls of similar
ages in other countries would be at school, the island’s girls
would begin to train to become Hae-Nyeo. Beginning in the
shallows, trainees gradually worked their way up to more
challenging depths of over 10 metres.
It takes seven years of training almost every day before a
girl can be considered a fully qualified Hae-Nyeo, and from
that moment she becomes a hardworking “mermaid” for life,
spending every day diving under the eye of the early morning
sun. In the afternoon, she ventures back to land to farm crops.
It’s a lifetime fully dedicated to husbandry, and it is vital to
the island’s survival. The women dive daily, through their
pregnancies, and even into their mid-90s.
The divers are categorised into three groups depending
on their level of experience: hagun, junggun and sanggun.
The latter is the most experienced, offering advice and
guidance to the younger divers.
Before they begin their dive, there’s a prayer for safety and
a wealthy catch. The Haesindang Shrine is a holy place where
IMAGES © SEO JAE CHUL / HAE-NYEO MUSEUMabove Hae-Nyeo used
to wear traditional
cotton dive suits called
mulot
above right A bitchang- a tool for picking
abalones off rocks –
and a set of flippers
right Four Hae-Nyeo
women warm thmselves
by a fire after a dive.
The women dive up to
10 metres deep in the
chilly watersHae-Nyeo pray to Yeongdeung, the dragon god who controls
the sea, and dances such as Jamsugut and Yowanggut are
performed as rituals to pray for a good harvest.
Previously, the women dived in the freezing waters
wearing loose cotton swimsuits called mulot, which consisted
of three pieces: mulsojungi (pants), muljeoksam (jacket) and
mulsugun (hair tie). They dived for up to two hours at a time.
The women finally began using proper wetsuits,
subsidised by the government, in the 1970s. This meant that
they could maintain their body heat for longer, and increase
time spent in the water. They no longer had to sit by a fire
for three to four hours to dry off their cotton clothing before
jumping back in.
Today, while wearing headlight-shaped scuba masks
and lead weights strapped around their waists to help them
to sink faster, they still stick to the same techniques to collect
seafood. A round flotation device called a tewak, – the size of