March–August 1947
Immediately after the war, we had great hopes for independence, but the Japanese colonists had merely been replaced by American occupiers through the United States Army Military Government in Korea. Each morning and every evening, Jun-bu turned on his transistor radio. We heard Americans speaking in their language and others translating for them. They seemed to have come to the same conclusion that the Japanese had reached long ago: Jeju had a great strategic location. The island was now an American stepping-stone, only this time it led to the USSR, so instead of Japanese regiments, we had the Americans’ 749th Field Artillery, the Fifty-first Field Artillery, the Twentieth Regiment of the Sixth Division, and the Fifty-ninth Military Government Company. The commander of the government group, Major Thurman A. Stout, became Jeju Military Governor Stout. He ruled side by side with Park Gyeong-hun, who’d been appointed as the Korean governor. The People’s Committees opposed this, since neither man had been elected, but they were powerless to make a change. Governor Stout made lots of speeches, but the radio also had interviews with Captain Jones, Captain Partridge, Captain Martin, and captain, captain, captain. One day, Governor Stout announced, “In the interests of a peaceful and effective transfer, we’re asking officials from the former administration to return to their jobs. We also welcome all former policemen to work with us.”
“But every one of them is a former collaborator!” Jun-bu fumed. He wasn’t the only one to be upset. Most people took these moves to mean that the Americans were siding with the right-wingers and that the administration of the island—and small villages—would shift away from the People’s Committees to the police and constabulary. It was as if the Americans didn’t understand what they’d inherited.
But anger can be dangerous and have unintended consequences. The relationship between Governor Stout and the People’s Committees continued to sour. At the same time, recruitment posters for the Ninth Regiment of the Korean Constabulary were distributed to every village. Jun-bu read one of them to me: “The Korean Constabulary is neither a right-wing nor a left-wing organization. It is a patriotic military agency for youngbloods who love their comrades and are willing to die for their country. We are not the hunting dog of a certain country. We are not the puppet of a certain political party. We are simply the bulwark of the state, which tries to pursue Korea’s independence and defend our beloved homeland.” The constabulary’s actions, however, sent a clearer message. Its troops, many of whom had served in the Imperial Japanese Army, moved into the barracks at the former Japanese Navy Air Service air base in Moseulpo, which sent outrage around the island.
Through it all, people struggled to understand what the other side was saying. So much so that the U.S. military government opened an English academy. Men who’d been conscripted by the Japanese, had worked as collaborators, or had been educated abroad, were encouraged to sign up, which Jun-bu and Sang-mun did. As Jun-bu explained his decision to me, “How can I help change things if I sit by and do nothing?” I thought of my husband as being very smart, but he did not excel in learning this new language. Every night, he struggled with the lessons. Even the children and I picked up the basic sentences faster and better than he did, reciting the lines back and forth to each other like a call-and-response haenyeo song. Hello . . . Hello! What is your name? My name is . . . Do you have . . . Yes, I do . . . Where is . . . Turn right at . . .
Sang-mun, whom I did not respect, grasped the language so quickly that the Americans hired him to do almost the same job he’d done for the Japanese. He managed their supplies, making sure they were delivered from the port or airfield to the proper base or warehouse. They gave him a house to live in at their facility in Hamdeok, which was only three kilometers from Bukchon. He was on the road a lot, often staying away for nights at a time. Perhaps this is why Mi-ja did not become pregnant again, while I was just getting over another bout of morning sickness. No one could believe my belly had a third baby in it already, when Min-lee was about to turn two and Sung-soo was only nine months old. Sure, the haenyeo I dove with teased me, but I felt proud. I wished, though, that Mi-ja and I could be pregnant again together as we’d been during leaving-home water-work. I’d felt so close to her then and was certain Min-lee and Yo-chan would always be close as a result.
During Sang-mun’s long absences, Mi-ja walked through the olles to Bukchon with her son, and I’d veer toward Hamdeok on my way home from the bulteok so we could meet halfway—almost as we had done in Hado when we were young girls.
“I brought in two nets filled with sea urchins today,” I might say.
And she might respond with “I made kimchee.” Or washed clothes, dyed cloth, or ground grain.
Sometimes I’d come around the bend and see her with her arms resting on top of the stone wall, staring out to sea.
“Do you miss diving?” I might ask.
“The sea will forever be my home,” she always answered.
Once I saw bruises above her wrist. A man does not change with marriage, and I had my suspicions about Sang-mun, but I was hesitant to ask about him directly. One day I gathered my courage and made a more general inquiry. “Are you happy?”
“You and I are finally living with our husbands,” she replied. “We know things about them we didn’t know in those first few weeks of marriage. Sang-mun snores sometimes. He farts when he eats too much turnip. Often, when he comes home, I can tell he’s been drinking. It’s not our rice wine, but something he has with the Americans. I can’t stand the smell.”
These were nothing answers. She knew it. I knew it.
“I should be going home now,” she said, then called to her son. I watched them walk up the olle until they were out of sight.
* * *
As a haenyeo, wife, and mother, I focused on diving, my husband, my two children, Yu-ri, and the new baby to come. We enter the netherworld to earn our living and return to this one to save our children. We haenyeo are ruled by the moon and tides, but we’re also affected by various sets of three: The abundance of wind, rocks, and women. The lack of thieves, gates, and beggars. The three-step farming system that gives our pigs food from our behinds, fertilizer for our dry fields from the pigs’ behinds, and a pig that can eventually be eaten. We didn’t talk about it often, but Jeju was also known as the Island of the Three Disasters—wind, flood, and drought. Wind, again, always, and forever.