We knelt and prayed. We bowed. Shaman Kim spat water to keep evil spirits at bay. She commented on the weather and tides, cajoling the goddess of the wind to be gentle in the coming months. “Let our haenyeo be safe all season. Prevent our fishermen from being lost to a typhoon, cyclone, or tempestuous seas.”
When the ceremony ended, we ate some of the offerings and then threw the rest of the food into the sea for all water and wind goddesses and gods to enjoy in hopes they would show us favor. Then it was time for dancing. Min-lee and Wan-soon held hands as they swayed. They looked free and happy. Last year, when Min-lee turned fifteen, I’d given her a tewak made of Styrofoam. Wan-soon was given one as well. Gu-sun and I had taught our daughters to dive, but their destinies lay elsewhere. I’d thought Jun-bu crazy when he’d said he wanted all our children to be educated, but now I did everything possible to respect his wishes. If you plant red beans, then you will harvest red beans. Min-lee was in high school, Kyung-soo in middle school, and Joon-lee in elementary school. My two eldest children were only so-so students, but Joon-lee was truly her father’s daughter. She was smart, diligent, and studious. Each year, her teachers proclaimed her the smartest person—boy or girl—in class. Gu-sun had also saved money to send Wan-soon, her youngest child, to school, so our daughters only dove with us if their free days corresponded with the right tides. Since they worked so little, Gu-sun and I had told them they could use their earnings to buy school supplies, but they mostly treated themselves with ribbons for their hair or candy bars.
For the next two weeks, while the goddess of the wind was on Jeju, we’d remain idle. We wouldn’t dive and fishermen wouldn’t board their boats or rafts, since the winds the goddess brought with her were particularly fierce and fickle. No other chores could be done either. It was said that if you made soy sauce at this time, insects would hatch in it. If you repaired your roof, it would leak. If you sowed grains, a drought would come. Hence, this was a time to visit neighbors, talk long into the night, and share meals and stories.
* * *
“Mother, come see!” Joon-lee called.
I peeked out the door as she came into the courtyard with the water she’d drawn from the village well. Through the open gate, I saw men filing past, one right after the other like a string of fish.
“Hurry here!” I cried, fearful. Joon-lee left the jar on the ground and ran to my side. I pushed her protectively behind me. “Where’s your sister?” I asked.
Before Joon-lee could answer, Min-lee came through the gate. She set down her water and jogged over to us. “They’re strangers,” she whispered. Of course they were. They wore black trousers with sharp creases. Their shoes were made of leather. Their jackets were unlike any I’d seen before, making them look puffy and awkward. Some of them were Korean. They had to be from the mainland. But there were also Japanese and white men. I automatically took them to be Americans, because they were tall and sandy-haired. Not one of them wore a uniform. They weren’t armed either, as far as I could tell. At least half of them wore glasses. My initial anxiety was replaced by curiosity. The last man strode past. Friends and neighbors, chattering, pointing, and craning their necks to get a better glimpse, trailed behind him.
“I want to see who they are,” Joon-lee said, grabbing my hand. She was too young to understand terror, but for some reason I wasn’t afraid, and neither was Min-lee. I even called to Do-saeng to join us.
We stepped into the olle and were swept along the shore road.
“Who are they?” Joon-lee asked.
Her older sister asked the more important question. “What do they want?”
More women came out of their houses. I saw my diving partner, Yang-jin, up ahead, and we rushed to catch up to her.
“Are they going to the village square?” I asked.
“Maybe they have business with the men,” she replied.
But we didn’t turn inland toward the village square. Instead, we spilled onto the beach. Once there, I saw that there weren’t so many of us after all. Maybe about thirty women and children. The strangers turned to us. With their backs to the sea, the frigid wind ruffled their hair and flapped through their trousers. A small, compact man stepped forward. He spoke in standard Korean, but we were able to understand him.
“My name is Dr. Park. I’m a scientist.” He motioned to the men around him. “We’re all scientists. Some of us are from the mainland, but we also have scientists from around the world. We’re here to study the haenyeo. We’ve just spent two weeks in a village near Busan, where many haenyeo go for itinerant work. Now we’ve come to the native home of the haenyeo. We hope you will help us.”
We had six haenyeo chiefs—one for each of the sections that made up Hado—but not one of them was with us. I nudged my mother-in-law. “You’re the highest ranked among us,” I said. “You must speak to them.”
She set her jaw, determined, and then stepped out of the crowd and crossed halfway to the men. “I am Yang Do-saeng. I’m the former chief of the Sut-dong collective. I’m listening.”
“We understand you have just greeted the goddess of the wind and will be free from activity for the next two weeks—”
“A woman is never free from activity,” she said.
Dr. Park smiled at her comment but chose not to address it. “You may not know this, but the cold-water stress that the haenyeo endure is greater than for any other human group in the world.”
This was met by indifferent looks. We didn’t know about “other human groups” or “cold-water stress.” We only had our own experiences. When Mi-ja and I had dived off Vladivostok in winter, we didn’t see any people in the water with us apart from other haenyeo. We considered our ability a gift that allowed us to help our families.
“We’re looking for twenty volunteers,” he went on. “We would like ten haenyeo and ten nondivers.”
“What are they volunteering for?” Do-saeng asked.
“We’ll be testing women in and out of the water,” Dr. Park answered.
“We don’t enter the sea when the goddess of the wind is here,” Do-saeng said.
“You don’t enter the sea, or you don’t harvest?” he inquired. “We aren’t asking you to harvest anything. That’s why we came now—when you aren’t busy. If you aren’t harvesting, the goddess won’t be angry.”
But what did he know about our goddess or how strong she was? Still, he had a point. No one had ever said it was forbidden to enter the water during this time.
“We’ll be taking your temperatures,” he continued, so sure of himself. “We’ll—”
“Can I help?” Joon-lee chirped.
People on both sides laughed. Those who knew Joon-lee expected something like this from her, while the strangers clearly thought she was cute. She ran to her grandmother. Dr. Park squatted so he was face-to-face with her. “We’re studying the basal metabolic rate of the haenyeo compared to nondiving women. We’ll come in each of the four seasons. Is your mother a diver?” When she nodded, he continued. “We’re going to set up a lab on this beach. We’ll take women’s temperatures before and after they go in the water. We want to study their shiver index. We’re wondering if a breath-hold diver’s ability to withstand cold is genetic or a learned adaptation. We—”
Joon-lee turned and stared at me with her soot-black eyes. “Mother, you have to do this. Granny too! And you too, Big Sister.” She swung back to Dr. Park. “That’s three. Oh, and Kim Yang-jin will do it too, won’t you?” When my diving partner nodded, Joon-lee gave Dr. Park a resolute look. “I’ll help you find the others. We don’t have many households without haenyeo, but there’s a widow who grinds and sells millet, a woman who makes charcoal, and another who’s known for her weaving.” She cocked her head. “When do you want them to start?” And then she took in the other men’s faces. “Where are you going to put your lab?”