The Sea Woman
Fort Wayne, IN
2023, Senior, Creative Writing
Climate Hero: Haenyeo
It was 10:17 in the early afternoon when the woman set out for the sea. She stood at the edge of the rock, feeling its charred ridges chafe against her bare soles. The waves were almost gray at this time of the year. She enjoyed days when the sun would peek at the water, scattering flashes of glitter onto the youthful tides, but she hadn’t seen such a sight since late August. Today, the rays were muffled by a thick, colorless blanket of clouds overhead. She contemplated how many minutes must have passed since her departure from home. There was still plenty remaining before her planned return. As the bitter wind lashed at her cheeks, the woman pulled on a wetsuit and tied a belt of lead weights around her hips. Attached to the belt was a long string, at the end of which there was a bright orange flotation device and a net called a tewak.
She had been a haenyeo, “sea woman,” for 53 years now. She had taken inspiration from her mother – or rather, had no choice – in becoming one. Each of the women she had known in her Jeju Island village was one, while the boys went to school. She used to resent this, but now, she felt as if it had been a kind of strange and counterintuitive blessing.
The effects of her 53-year journey were clear. Her complexion resembled a mask of leather more than it did of skin, and her hair was cut into a short frizz. To her, longer hair felt uncomfortable underneath a rubbery wetsuit. Beneath the aging layer of flesh, her arms were muscular, which she was proud of. Her iron lungs were better than ever, better than most people’s out there. She pulled her goggles over her eyes, reminiscing the day when her mother first taught her how to recognize the glint of an abalone shell. The two of them had both been wearing pure white cotton mulot – “water clothes” – instead of the common black rubber of today. The times had changed.
The woman dove into the sea. The lead belt tied around her hips aided her in sinking slowly to the ground, and the water’s pressure pushed against her ears. The moment when she started to love being a woman of the sea was when she could finally hold her breath for three consecutive minutes under water, all without trouble. As haenyeo never used oxygen tanks or scuba gear, to limit their catches and leave plenty of room for animal reproduction, it was a monumental achievement for her. Those three minutes changed everything. Time felt much slower beneath the waves, and the woman used this to her advantage. If she focused on the sensation of currents lapping at her sides and the sound of bubbles whispering as they rose to the surface, she could become the water. She could hear the murmurs of seaweed traveling along the tide and feel the scales of hairtail fish gliding between her ankles. She could speak the language of the ocean’s inhabitants fluently as if it was her mother tongue, as if it was part of her.
But, as always, there was a barrier. It was essential to know when to suppress eagerness. Hold your breath one too many seconds to catch one too many shellfish… you would run out of the breath that is vital to swim back up to the surface. She had personally known four women who had passed from this love of diving. To be a haenyeo, the woman had to watch herself from afar and remember her limits.
Her body was not the only thing to have changed in her lifetime. Abalone were growing increasingly rare – no, everything was growing increasingly rare, rapidly. At first, she didn’t notice much at all. But the collective findings of the sea women were shrinking noticeably every year. They would halt catching creatures during breeding seasons to allow the creatures to flourish. The woman couldn’t dream of snacking on extra abalone from her catches for lunch anymore; they were too precious. She thought of her youth, when all the women had searched solely for sea creatures. Though she had never really scoured the ocean for waste before recent years, that was what she was doing now. Lately, that was what all the sea women were doing: searching the oceans in multiple rounds for garbage.
Things were unnatural now. Schools of sardines that darted through the waters were replaced with inanimate waste, little by little. It was killing everything: the abalone, the sand dollars, the ecosystem itself. Seaweed, a crucial food source for many marine animals, was promptly dwindling. All the sea women were now required to swim deeper and deeper to harvest any of it. A fellow haenyeo the woman knew who was approaching the ripe age of 90 had been particularly distressed: such a gaping dive took a toll on her body.
What wrongs had the sea creatures committed to deserve such treatment? None of it was organic to the cycle of life. The woman would remind herself of this predicament every morning when she woke up, and every night when she went to sleep. She often dreamed of trotting out to the shore, only to find all the water gone from the Earth, vanished to nothing. She would jolt awake in a cold sweat.
At times, the woman felt helpless. No matter how much waste she would drag from the waves, the sheer amount choking her abalone felt endless, almost as if it was growing larger. In the corner of her mind, she knew it was. This reality spurred her to continue cleansing what she could in the sea. Anything the woman did beneath the waters would be safe for the ocean: she released no fumes, no oils, no carbon dioxide.
The woman sank further downwards. Now, every single creature she caught was especially precious, and the best thing she could do for the ocean was to pull out the trash. She pulled away any bags wrapped around the fish, dug out wine glasses and water bottle caps. She found four golf balls and a fork. A soggy shoe. She planned to reseed the shellfish the next day.
On the way home, she met a young haenyeo from Seoul who had started diving only a few months ago. As they passed each other, they shared a knowing glance. Good luck, the woman thought. The young haenyeo seemed to wish her the same.
When she arrived at her room, it was 2:13 in the afternoon, earlier than usual. It was time well spent.
Works Cited
https://www.uwphotographyguide.com/diving-jeju-south-korea#:~:text=Thus%2C%20a%20wid e%20variety%20of,of%20vibrant%20colors%20and%20sizes.
https://www.yesmagazine.org/issue/bodies/2022/11/21/the-haenyeo-and-the-sea-diving-as-comm unity-led-resistance
https://oceanservice.noaa.gov/hazards/marinedebris/plastics-in-the-ocean.html#:~:text=Common ly%20found%20Plastics%20include%20cigarette,%2C%20and%20single%2Duse%20bags.
https://www.p65warnings.ca.gov/fact-sheets/recreational-boats-and-other-pleasure-craft
https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/campaigns/ocean_plastics/#:~:text=Plastics%20pollution%2 0has%20a%20direct,or%20getting%20entangled%20in%20it.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-earth-day-southkorea-haenyeo-widerima-idCAKBN2C60HS https://creatrip.com/en/blog/10320
https://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2021/04/20/2003756027
https://artsandculture.google.com/story/jeju-haenyeo-mulot-and-diving-tools-jeju-provincial-self -governing-heanyeo-museum/OgURgv_M3xAA8A?hl=en
Reflection
Ever since I was little, movies like The Little Mermaid and Finding Nemo had an influential effect on my interest in the ocean, which even led me to consider becoming a marine biologist. While mulling over what I could write my story on, my mind immediately went back to the times when these movies first changed my outlook on the ocean. I had the idea of focusing on the mermaids of my culture's heritage: the haenyeo, women of the sea, from South Korea. Though I always knew about their existence, it was my first time putting research into what they do, how they feel about climate change, and how they spend their days. I was shocked to discover that there is a whole world within such a small community, with its own rules and norms. There is such a strong bond between the haenyeo and the ocean, and the women themselves. Such a pure connection to nature is hard to find in the modern world. They sincerely love the work they do. And because they love their work, much of their attention has now been focused on climate change. I have noticed many people brushing aside the effects of climate change because they think there are other people out there who are already putting in efforts. The haenyeo are a beautiful example of a group that actively defies this misinformed assumption. Even if it's a small group relative to the world's population, this doesn't stop them from continuing to reshape the sea and playing their part. These women give me hope that efforts are always being made in good conscience.