The haenyeo, or sea women, continue to free dive for seafood on Jeju, the Maui-sized island 300 miles south of Seoul. It’s a dangerous profession, one that has drawn generations of women seeking not fame but survival. In 1965, there were more than 23,000—one in five women in Jeju—but today fewer than 4,000 dive for a living, nearly all of them over 60. Women well into their 80s and 90s abandon their walkers at the shore and morph into mermaids. Read their story here.
“I hear a high-pitched whistle, not unlike a dolphin’s cry, and then another—a chorus rising like a series of questions. This is sumbi, the sound that a haenyeo makes as she returns to the light, expelling the very last reserve of air from her lungs and preparing to fill them anew.”
Photo by Jun Michael Park