“All right. You didn’t,” I agreed. “Politicians somewhere far from here passed a law, but what do they know about our practices and our traditions?”
The man puffed his chest. It truly wasn’t his fault, but the law that said one diver per household went into effect six years ago—without asking our opinion—and had been a terrible blow to all families who relied on grandmothers, mothers, and daughters for family income.
“It’s always been the case that if a woman married out or moved away, she lost her rights to that village,” he said.
“So? Years ago, when I married and moved to another village, I was readily accepted into that collective. Now, a woman can only apply for a license after living in a new village for sixty days. And if her mother-or sister-in-law is already a diver, then—”
“The point is,” Yang-jin cut in, “if only one diver can be licensed per household, how are we supposed to bring our daughters to the sea?”
“And even if I could bring them,” I asked, adding to the point my diving partner had made, “why would I?”
“Am I to hear about Joon-lee now?” the man queried with a pronounced sigh.
Yes, because I knew it irked him. “My younger daughter attends university in Seoul.”
“I know. I know.”
“While not all daughters are as lucky or as smart as Joon-lee, every young woman now has opportunities that are far less dangerous than diving,” I went on. “Look at my older daughter. As her mother, I can say Min-lee was never the cleverest girl, but she helps provide for her family by selling postcards, soda pop, and suntan oil to tourists.”
The women around me nodded knowingly, but not one of us had heard of soda pop or suntan oil until recently.
“Why dive when you can be safe on land?” Yang-jin asked.
The man didn’t bother to answer. He wasn’t risking his life entering the sea.
“So who does that leave? You see around you women who’ve been diving together for many years.” I chuckled. “The Kang sisters, Yang-jin, and I—most of us here, actually—are getting close to retirement age. What will you do when that happens?”
He shrugged, pretending indifference, which made us laugh, which made him turn red. He brought the bullhorn back to his mouth. “I run the Village Fishery Association. I’m in charge. You’re to do as I tell you.”
We laughed even harder then, and more blood rushed to his face. He didn’t realize he’d given us another Jeju set of three: he used his line, we laughed at him, and he flushed. Every diving day, the same thing.
Jeju had always been the island of the Three Abundances. We still had plenty of wind and rocks, but we women were being forced to conform in ways we hadn’t before. I can’t say if this is a fact or not, but I believed that the Fisheries Cooperative Act came about because of the shortage of men caused by the 4.3 Incident, the 6.25 War, and the new industrialization on the mainland, which lured men away for factory jobs. We had yet another struggle between Shamanism, which was primarily for women, and Confucianism, which favored men. Confucius didn’t care much for women: When a girl, obey your father; when a wife, obey your husband; when a widow, obey your son. But when I was a girl, I obeyed my mother; when I was a wife, I had equal say to my husband; and now that I was a widow, my only son had to obey me. This was not the case in many households. I was glad I wasn’t a daughter or wife now, and that my son knew better than to test me.
The most important and startling of the changes was that men now oversaw the Village Fishery Association. We still had our own collective and met in the bulteok, but the man told us who could work and for how long. He tried to control us—as other men did with every haenyeo collective around the island—so we felt less free to be ourselves or determine our futures. He even made us pay fines if we exceeded catch limits or harvested something in the wrong season. Fines! This I had managed to prevent as chief, so the women in my collective did not have to pay penalties. If you put it all together—men telling us what to do, daughters going to school and getting dry-land jobs, and, especially, rules forbidding more than one woman in a household to work as a haenyeo—no wonder there were fewer of us. Add to that what happened after President Park came to visit. He looked around our island and decided that it wasn’t practical to build factories here, but, since the weather was good, he declared that the only way to earn a living was by growing a type of tangerine called gamgyul. So people, including many haenyeo, started growing tangerines on the other side of the island. The first time Dr. Park came, there were about twenty-six thousand haenyeo on Jeju. When he came last year—to measure our tolerance to holding our hands in ice water—we’d dropped to eleven thousand haenyeo. Eleven thousand! He made me a bet that within another five years we’d lose another half to retirement.
The only good thing about the Village Fishery Association, as far as I was concerned, was that we could keep whatever we’d harvested beyond our “required quota.” These items I took to sell on the streets of Jeju City. The income had paid for my children’s educations and Min-lee’s wedding and would help me with the banquet and other festivities attached to the forthcoming marriage of Kyung-soo and a girl he’d met on the mainland during his mandatory military service. Soon I would have four generations living within the same fence: my mother-in-law, me, my son and daughter-in-law, and the children they would have.
“Hurry up now!” the man shouted. “Gather your gear!”
We did so, and then climbed onto the back of his truck. He drove us to the dock, where a large motorboat waited for us. Once we were aboard, the captain headed to sea, first dropping the small-divers in a cove and then steering through the churning waves to the deep sea. When we arrived, I took charge.
“Mind your tewaks,” I said. “Stay close to the boat. Come in when you get cold. And please watch out for each other.”
Life on land had changed, but the sea remained the same. A breath, a breath, a breath, then down . . . The water here was crystal clear to a great depth. Black volcanic rocks stood in contrast to the pearly sand. To my left, a forest of seaweed swayed as if blown by a gentle wind. As always, my above-sea concerns melted away when I began to concentrate, searching the rocks for creatures to put in my net, my senses heightened to watch for dangers.
Four hours later, we arrived back at shore and were returned to Hado, where a few men waited for the truck to pull to a stop. Husbands still spent the day in the village square, minding babies and toddlers, but they helped their wives in ways once unimaginable. We haenyeo are strong, and we had always done our own hauling. Since our men were unaccustomed to physical labor, it typically took two of them to carry what a haenyeo brought ashore. “When you accept our help,” the man in charge had explained, “you become more profitable.” Of course, I didn’t have a husband, and my son was on the mainland. Today, my net was so heavy with my harvest that I had to bend over so that my face was nearly parallel to the ground to bear the weight. The burden—the tangible, physical proof of my labors—felt like money, opportunity, and love.
We still weighed our catches together, but the man in charge oversaw sales and the distribution of monies earned from our sea harvests. Once that was done, we entered the bulteok, warmed by the fire, got dressed, and shared a meal. At least that man didn’t come inside. That would have been one insult too many.
“I hear Joon-lee’s coming home today,” Gu-ja said.
“For the summer,” I answered.
“Have her thoughts turned to marriage yet?” Gu-sun asked.
I put a hand on her shoulder, knowing how hard it had to be for her to ask questions that involved a daughter and the unfolding of her life. “You know how Joon-lee is,” I answered. “Her thoughts seem to be only on books. I’m lucky Min-lee has already given me twin grandsons.”