The Island of Sea Women

by Lisa See

  “It’s not fair,” Joon-lee said.

  “It’s not,” I agreed. “Many of us lost sons in the war or during”—I lowered my voice—“the incident, which is why some here have adopted sons. But there are others of us, like myself, who’ve bought fields to give to our daughters one day.”

  “You bought fields for me?” Joon-lee asked with a curious look on her face. Until this moment, I hadn’t considered the possibility that she might not want land on Jeju, that she might not return at all.

  “I don’t know why you’re all talking about how your husbands do all the cooking and taking care of the children,” one of my neighbors said. “In my house, cooking, cleaning, and washing are women’s work. My work. I keep it simple. Barley porridge. A soup with pickled vegetables.”

  “I know what you mean,” someone else agreed. “My husband longs to be the master of our family, but I do everything. I consider him only a guest in my home.”

  “It’s better to have a guest in your home than have no husband at all,” I said. “I loved my husband, and I will love him forever. I would give anything to have him with me.”

  “But Jun-bu was different than other men,” Gu-sun said. “We all grew up with him, and—”

  “I had two wrong husbands,” Yang-jin interrupted. “My second husband did nothing for me. Now that he’s dead, I’ll never think about either of them again.”

  “I lost my husband too,” one of the small-divers said, “and I also don’t miss him. He never helped our family. He couldn’t dive. Men are weak under the sea, where we face life and death every day.”

  “You’re being too severe.” I paused for a moment to see how I could say this so they’d understand. “Times are changing. Look at my son. He didn’t seek permission to marry. His future wife is not a haenyeo. I love my son, and I know every single one of you loves your sons. Sons grow up to be men.”

  “It’s true,” Gu-ja agreed. “I love my sons.”

  “I lost Wan-soon,” her sister admitted, “but I would die if I lost one of my sons.”

  “I’m teaching my great-grandsons to cook,” Do-saeng boasted.

  “Already?”

  “They’re never too young to start learning,” Do-saeng said. “I’m teaching them how to make porridge.”

  “Me too!”

  And suddenly the conversation shifted as the women began to speak of their love of their sons and grandsons. Joon-lee kept writing, but I wasn’t sure she was getting the information she’d hoped for. As for me, I was troubled. She’d made me see things in a different way. We lived on an island of goddesses. One for childbirth, one for child death, one for the hearth, one for the sea, and so on, with gods serving as their consorts. Our strongest goddess was Grandmother Seolmundae—the embodiment of our island. Our strongest real woman was Kim Mandeok, who’d saved the people during the Most Horrendous Famine, but we’d been inspired by made-up women and girls too. Every single person in the bulteok had either read or had read to her the story of Heidi. But as strong as we were and as much as we did, not one of us would ever be chosen to run the Village Fishery Association or be elected to Hado’s village council.

  * * *

  In August, when our sweet potato crop was ready to harvest, Joon-lee came with Do-saeng and me on the first day to help. She lasted exactly one hour before sitting in the shade of the rock wall that edged the field. She pulled out a transistor radio and a notebook from her backpack. The music she played? Eeee. It hurt my ears, but it kept away the crows. She began writing. It had to be another letter.

  “Who are you writing to this time?” I asked.

  “A friend. In Seoul.”

  Do-saeng glanced over at me. She’d kept quiet about my daughter, but I could tell she disapproved of the way Joon-lee acted.

  “Every day you write,” I said. “You take your letters to the post office, but I never see you receive anything in return.”

  “That’s because everyone’s so busy,” she replied, not even looking up from her notebook. “Seoul isn’t like Jeju. The magic of Seoul is that boredom is impossible. There’s culture, history, and creativity everywhere.”

  When she was a little girl, her inquisitiveness had gotten her into trouble on occasion, but it had also taken her to where she was now. I should have been exulting in her accomplishments, but all I felt was sadness.

  * * *

  Then too fast—although in many ways it wasn’t fast enough—it was time for Joon-lee to go back to her university. Do-saeng and I packed dried fish, sweet potatoes, and jars of kimchee for her to take to her dormitory. I prepared an envelope with money for her to spend on books and other supplies. I’d even re-dyed one of her persimmon-cloth outfits to make it stronger, although I had a feeling she’d never wear it in Seoul.

  When Joon-lee entered the room, she was already dressed in her traveling outfit—a sleeveless white blouse and what I’d learned was called a miniskirt. What she said startled me more than anything else she’d said or done all summer.

  “Mother, before I leave, will you take me with you to Yo-chan’s house?”

  I took a breath, hoping to slow my racing heart, then asked, “Why would I take you there?”

  She lifted a single shoulder. “You go every day. I thought you could take me with you.”

  “You haven’t answered my question.”

  She looked away, avoiding my eyes. “Yo-chan asked me to get something for him.”

  Beside me, Do-saeng hissed between clenched teeth. I stared hard at my daughter, but I tried to tread carefully.

  “You’re in contact with Yo-chan?”

  “We’ve known each other since we were kids,” she said, as if I didn’t know that.

  “They moved away—”

  “But we met again in Seoul.”

  “That you even know him is a surprise,” I admitted, while keeping my voice as steady as possible.

  “I saw him on campus one day. We recognized each other right away. He invited me to a restaurant to see his mother—”

  “Mi-ja—”

  “They’ve been kind to me. He’s attending the Graduate School of Business right on campus, and—”

  “Joon-lee, don’t hurt me this way.”

  “I’m not hurting you. We’re friends. That’s all. They take me out for dinner sometimes.”

  “Please stay away from them.” That I had to beg my daughter for this seemed incomprehensible to me.

  She stared at me in frustration. “You go to her house every day.”

  “That’s different.”

  “Deep roots remain tangled underground,” she recited. “Yo-chan’s mother says that about the two of you, and I guess she’s right.”

  “I’m not tangled with Mi-ja,” I said, but I wasn’t speaking truthfully. I don’t know why I felt compelled to visit her house every day, but I was drawn there nevertheless. I watered the flowers she’d left behind. I washed her floors when they got dirty. I went to the city office every year to make sure the taxes were paid. (They were.) If Mi-ja ever came back, I’d be ready for her. For now, though, I had to convince my daughter to avoid Mi-ja and her son. “It would bring me solace to know that when you’re far from home you won’t see them. Can you please promise me that?”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “You said the same thing years ago when you broke your arm, and yet here we are.”

  Defiance flared in her eyes, but she said, “I promise, all right? Now will you let me get the thing Yo-chan needs from his house? I said I’d bring it to him. After that—”

  “What is this thing?”

  “I don’t know exactly. He said it’s in a chest that sits against the wall in the main room.”

  I knew everything in that house, and what was in that chest did not belong to Yo-chan. It belonged to Mi-ja. It was her father’s book.

  “You know,” my daughter went on, “I could have gone over there any day this summer and picked it up. I didn’t have to ask you.”

  But
of course she did, because I would have noticed if anything was missing.

  “I was showing you respect,” she insisted.

  This I had to believe.

  “The sooner this is behind us, the better,” I said. “I’ll take you.”

  Joon-lee rewarded me with her father’s smile.

  But I was still hurt. These past few years, I’d been obliged to accept orders from the man from the Village Fishery Association, but my consolation had come from knowing I was giving my daughter the best education possible. She was smart and ambitious. She knew things I would never know. But now I saw other realities: You can do everything for a child. You can encourage her to read and do her math homework. You can forbid her to ride a bike, giggle too much, or see a boy. I’d just asked her to promise she wouldn’t see Yo-chan or Mi-ja again. She’d done so grudgingly. Sometimes everything you do is as pointless and as ineffective as shouting into the wind.

  A Guest for One Hundred Years

  1972–1975

  “Sit. Sit,” I said in heavily accented English to the American soldiers. I squatted on my haunches, surrounded by plastic tubs filled with abalone, sea cucumber, sea squirt, and sea urchin. I also had a basket stuffed with paper plates, plastic spoons, and napkins. These servicemen on leave from battles in Vietnam looked young to me, but some of them had a haunted look I easily recognized. Or they were drunk. Or using drugs.

  “What are you selling today, Granny?” a local boy the servicemen had hired asked.

  “Here’s sea squirt—the ginseng of the sea. It will help these men below the belt.”

  The boy translated this. A couple of the soldiers laughed. One turned bright red. Two others pretended to gag. Young men. Even when they’re embarrassed they try to outdo each other. I could profit from that. I reached into a tub and pulled out a sea squirt.

  “See how it looks like a rock,” I said, with the local boy quietly repeating my words in English. “Look more closely. It’s covered in sea moss. Does it look familiar yet?” My knife slit open the underside and spread the creature apart. “What does this look like now? A woman’s privates! That’s right!” I switched to English. “Eat.”

  The soldier who’d blushed earlier now turned crimson, but he ate it. His companions slapped him on the back and shouted I-don’t-know-what. I poured homemade rice wine into abalone shells. The soldiers held the shells to their lips and swilled down the white liquid. I next sliced abalone, which they dipped into chili sauce. When they were done, I pointed to an octopus, still alive, and curled at the bottom of one of my tubs. I grinned, poured more rice wine into their shells, and encouraged them to drink. I watched as they egged each other on. Finally, the boy they’d hired said, “They’ll try it.”

  Soon sliced suckers writhed and twitched on a plate. “Be careful,” I warned in English. Then I switched to my native tongue. “The squirming bits are still alive. Those suction cups can grab your throat. You’ve had a lot to drink. I don’t want you to choke and die.”

  Hoots of daring. More rice wine. And soon the pieces of octopus were gone. These men were so different from the ones I’d met during my itinerant work. I remembered that time the chef climbed down the rope ladder to our boat and refused anything and everything except what was most recognizable to him: fish.

  The tallest of the soldiers pulled out a stack of postcards. He showed them to his friends, who nodded appreciatively. Then he held one out to me, pointed, and spouted a string of English words.

  “Tell us, Granny,” the Jeju boy said, translating as best he could, “where can they find girls like these?”

  I examined the image, which showed young women—their legs and arms firm, wearing form-fitting water clothes with bare shoulders, their hair hanging loose about their shoulders—in provocative poses. The mainland government had decided that the haenyeo might be a good tourist attraction, so now we were being advertised as the Sirens of the Deep and the Mermaids of Asia. I had no idea who the girls in the postcard were, but I was glad none of them worked in my collective.

  “You tell them I’m a haenyeo,” I said. “You tell them I’m the best haenyeo on Jeju!”

  That wilted their enthusiasm. I looked good, but I was forty-nine years old and only six years away from retirement.

  Every Saturday afternoon was like this. I brought my catch in from the sea, Min-lee helped me load everything onto a bus, and then I rode into Jeju City, found a street corner near the area with all the bars and girls, and sold my wares. My customers were mostly American servicemen. Here on leave, they rappelled off ocean-facing cliffs, swam in our wet fields, and raced each other up Mount Halla. I had other American customers too. They were from the Peace Corps, but rumors circulated that they actually worked for the U.S. government and were keeping tabs on “red” activity. It was hard to tell what was true or just more gossip, but all those people were so young and inexperienced that I often spooned out sea urchin roe and dropped it directly into their open mouths like they were baby birds.

  I sold the last of my goods, and the soldiers wandered down the street and into a bar. I emptied my tubs, stacked them, and walked to the bus stop. Along the way, I passed women wearing tight dresses. Men in untucked T-shirts and shorts or jeans sauntered up to those young women and exchanged words. Sometimes a deal was struck, but most of the women continued on their way, ignoring the eager attentions.

  When I was a girl going in and out of the port for leaving-home water-work, Jeju City had seemed so much more advanced than Hado. It still was. Jeju City had the largest five-day market on the island, where I could buy just about anything, but the city also had souvenir shops, photo studios, beauty parlors, and places to buy or repair toasters, fans, and lamps. Cars, motorcycles, trucks, buses, and taxis moved through traffic that also included horse- and donkey-pulled carts, as well as hand-pushed wheelbarrows piled high. The air was thick with cigarette smoke, perfume, diesel and gasoline exhaust, and dung from the dray animals. Raw sewage still ran through the gutters down to the harbor, where ships spewed oil and fish waited to be off-loaded to canneries. The alleyways were chockablock with bars serving our local rice wine, beer, barbecue, and girls. I had to be careful as I passed those places, because customers liked to throw chicken, pork, and beef bones out the door to the sidewalk, where poor kids scurried and darted to scavenge these discards and take them home to their families.

  By the time I boarded the bus, the sun had set. Outside the window, lights sprawled to infinity—from cafés and houses, to the port, and then offshore to the squid and shrimp boats, which dotted the sea all the way to where the ocean met the star-filled sky. The road circling the island had been paved the previous year, and the ride was smooth and fast. I got off at Hado and walked home through the olle. Oil lamps glowed here and there, but the old quiet was gone. People were frugal, so they didn’t always use their new electricity to light their homes, preferring instead to play radios and record players.

  I heard the racket from my house even before I reached it. I sighed. I was tired and didn’t want to face a crowd. I entered the gate, and the entire courtyard was filled with people, sitting with their backs to me. The new sliding doors into the big house had been pushed open. More people sat on the floor inside the house. Whether inside or outside, everyone faced the television like they were in a cinema. They’d all brought food too—buckwheat pancakes with shredded turnip and stews filled with rice cakes and fish floating in spicy red sauce and topped with fried chilies. The television picture was in black and white, and the reception was fuzzy, but I recognized the show right away. Maybe tonight Marshal Dillon would finally kiss Miss Kitty. I spotted Min-lee, her husband, the twins—now eight—and her daughters, five and two. Min-lee’s husband rubbed her back. Their fifth child was due in six weeks, and Min-lee stood on her feet all day in the gift shop in the hotel where she worked. They all lived in the big house now.

  I picked my way through the crowd to the little house that Do-saeng and I—two widows—now shared. I put
away my tubs and added the cash I’d earned today to the tin box where I kept my savings. When I was done, Do-saeng said reproachfully, “They’ve been peeing in the courtyard again.”

  “Tell them to use the latrine next time.”

  “Do you think I didn’t?”

  Not only were we the first in Hado to get a television, but our compound had been among the first to be affected by Saemaul Undong—the New Village Movement—which the regime had recently inaugurated. We’d been told we couldn’t promote tourism without upgrading the island. We were to have indoor plumbing, electricity, telephones, paved roads, and commercial airlines. This meant, among other things, that thatch roofs had to be replaced with those made of corrugated tin or tile. We were told tourists wouldn’t like our three-step farming system, and that we had to get rid of our pigsty latrines. Tourists wouldn’t want to see or smell pigs, and they certainly wouldn’t want to put their rear ends above the pigs’ greedy snouts. I didn’t know one family willing to tear down its latrine, and I’d continue to keep mine for as long as possible. So much change so fast was unsettling, and it undermined our way of life, our beliefs, and our traditions.

  “You spoiled your children, and now you’re spoiling your grandchildren with that television,” Do-saeng complained.

  I absorbed the criticism. Yes, I gave a spoonful of sugar to Min-lee’s twins and to her two daughters whenever I saw them, which was every day. I didn’t begrudge my grandchildren their treats, but the television had clearly been a mistake.

  “Look at it this way,” I said. “You get to see your great-grandchildren every day, and you’re healthy enough to enjoy them. Not every woman your age can say that.”

  At seventy-three, Do-saeng was in remarkable shape. Her braids had gone gray, but her body was strong. Even though she was well past retirement age, she’d begun diving again. That broke the rule of having more than one diver per household, but the man in charge of the Village Fishery Association let her join us from time to time because we needed her, and women like her, since it was impossible to find baby-divers these days. This, more than giving sugar to children, would have been unimaginable back when my own grandmother was alive.