Her words were sharp, and Gu-ja went quiet, realizing perhaps that she’d gone too far. But what this exchange showed me was how much Gu-ja’s comment about my friend’s marriage prospects had stung. I understood with sudden clarity that Mi-ja might long to be married even more than I did. If she were married, she could create her own family with a mother, father, and children.
Later, we sat together under heavy quilts on our sleeping mats, sharing body warmth and whispering so as not to disturb the Kang sisters, who huddled together on the other side of the curtain on their sleeping mats. Mi-ja and I quietly examined the rubbing we’d made that day, comparing it to our others. We’d been friends since we were seven, and we’d been collecting rubbings for fourteen years. Commemorations. Remembrances. Celebrations. Memorials. We had them all, and they eased our loneliness and homesickness. And our worry too, since we couldn’t know when Jeju might be bombed or invaded.
As usual, the last rubbing we looked at was the first we’d made: the rough surface of a stone in the wall that surrounded my family’s field. My fingers smoothed the paper, and I whispered to Mi-ja a question I’d asked her many times before. “Why didn’t I make a rubbing on one of the days of my mother’s funeral or memorial rite?”
“Stop punishing yourself for that,” Mi-ja answered in a low voice. “It only makes you melancholy.”
“But I miss her.”
Once my tears started, Mi-ja’s came too.
“You knew your mother,” she said. “All I can do is miss the idea of a mother.”
On the other side of the curtain, the oil lamp went out. Mi-ja tucked the papers back in her father’s book, and I turned down our oil lamp. Mi-ja wrapped her body around me, pulling me tighter than usual. She tucked her knees against my knees, her thighs against my thighs, her breasts against my back. Her arm draped over my hip, and she rested her hand on my stomach. The next day we would wake early and be dropped into the bitterly cold sea again, so we needed to sleep, but the unevenness of her breath on my neck and the alertness in her body made me realize she was wide awake and listening hard. Across the room, I sensed the Kang sisters listening to us equally hard. But it wasn’t long before Gu-sun began her light, buzzing snore. Soon her sister was lulled by that familiar sound, and her breathing deepened and lengthened.
Mi-ja’s body relaxed, and she whispered in my ear. “I want my husband to be filled with grit and mettle.” She clearly had not let go of Gu-ja’s comments. “He doesn’t have to be handsome, but I want him to have a strong body to show he’s a good worker.”
“It sounds like you’re talking about a mainland man,” I said. “How are you going to find one of them?”
“Maybe the matchmaker will bring one to me,” she answered.
Marriage arrangements were made either by matchmakers or when a relative of high regard made inquiries. It was doubtful, at least from my perspective, that Mi-ja’s aunt and uncle would pay for a matchmaker, and Mi-ja had never spoken of a relative of high regard who might bring a proposal. Most important, mainland men saw Jeju women as ugly, loud, and boyish in shape, with our lean bodies and strong muscles. They considered us to be too darkened by the sun. Mainland men also had strict ideas about how women should behave, because they followed Confucian ideals far more than Jeju men did. A woman was supposed to be gentle in her speech. Mi-ja had a lovely voice, but if she kept diving, her hearing would eventually go and she’d shout just as loudly as any other haenyeo. If she married a mainland man, she’d need to maintain a peach complexion. How was that going to happen if she spent her days under the sun, in salt water, buffeted by winds? A mainland husband would want a wife who dressed modestly, but haenyeo were considered to be half naked all the time. A wife should have red lips, shiny eyes, and a quiet disposition . . . All these ideas about women were set in stone in the minds of mainland men. Jeju husbands might have been indolent, but they would never triumph in a battle about what a woman could or could not do, say or not say. I mentioned none of this, however.
“I don’t care about looks so much,” I offered.
“You do too!” Mi-ja exclaimed.
Across the room, Gu-sun’s snoring snagged, and her sister rolled over.
“All right,” I admitted quietly after the Kang sisters settled once again. “I do. I don’t want someone who’s as thin as chopsticks. I want him to be dark skinned to show he’s not afraid of laboring in the sun.”
Mi-ja gave a throaty laugh. “So we both want men who will work.”
“And he should have a good character.”
“Good character?”
“Mother always said a haenyeo should not be greedy. Shouldn’t that be true for a man too? I don’t want to see greedy eyes or be around greedy hands. And he has to be brave.” When Mi-ja didn’t comment, I went on. “The most important thing is to marry a boy from Hado. That way I can continue to see and help my family. If you marry one too, we’ll both maintain our diving rights. Remember, if you marry out, then you’ll have to be accepted into that village’s collective.”
“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.”
“Together always,” I echoed.
We drifted into silence. I was getting sleepy, but I had a few last thoughts I wanted to share with her. I whispered some of the biggest complaints about Jeju men that I’d always heard. “I don’t want a husband with puny thoughts. I won’t tolerate a husband who needs scolding—”
“Or requires constant attention to know I care for him,” she added. “He can’t drink, gamble, or desire a little wife.”
There, in the nighttime shadows, we could dream.
When Thoughts Turn to Weddings
July–August 1944
When the season ended in late July, the Kang sisters, Mi-ja, and I boarded a ferry from Vladivostok to the Korean mainland and then took a second ferry down the east coast to Busan. Before catching the boat to Jeju, we went shopping. We were careful to speak Japanese in public as the colonists required. The Kangs quickly made their purchases and headed home. Mi-ja and I didn’t have husbands and babies who missed us, which allowed us to spend an extra day wandering the alleyways and open-air markets.
We patronized a stall that sold grain and came away with burlap sacks stuffed with barley and low-grade rice. One by one, we heaved them onto our shoulders and took them back to our guesthouse. A cloth peddler sold us quilts, which we rolled up tight to reduce their bulk and make them more portable. These we would take into our marriages. I spent a week’s earnings on a transistor radio, thinking this would make a good present for my future husband, while Mi-ja chose a camera for her future husband. I bargained hard for practical gifts for my siblings: a length of cloth, needles and thread, a knife, and the like. Father would receive a pair of shoes, and for Grandmother I bought socks to keep her warm on winter nights. Mi-ja and I chipped in to buy material to make scarves for Yu-ri, which we planned to sew on the trip home. Mi-ja also procured items for her aunt and uncle. Several times I spotted her standing motionless, staring into the distance, trying to remember all the things they’d asked her to bring home. On a few occasions, we went our separate ways, but for the most part we stayed together, haggling for better prices, smiling at merchants if we thought it would help, shouting in our loud haenyeo voices if it looked like they thought we were mere factory girls.