Jeju-do, known as Jeju Island, is the largest island in South Korea, and is home to beautiful natural scenery and an interesting community of women divers known as haenyeo.
Jeju Island. Republic of Korea. CC BY-SA 2.0
South of the Republic of Korea lies Jeju Island, a volcanic island famous for its beautiful beaches, resorts and landscape. The volcano on the island is a shield volcano called Hallasan, and it is the largest mountain in South Korea, standing at 1950 meters tall. Its status is considered active, but there are some who disagree since the last time it erupted was in 1007 AD. Also, the volcano does not smoke, and there is no fire coming out, so it appears to be dormant, hence the disagreement. Jeju Island is both the largest and only island in South Korea that governs itself. It is home to the World Heritage Site Jeju Volcano Island and Lava Tubes, and it is one of the new 7 wonders of nature alongside areas like South America’s Amazon Rainforest, Indonesia’s Komodo Island, South Africa’s Table Mountain and others.
Beyond the volcano, the island also has a network of lava caves and tunnels. The beaches, too, are beautiful, and there are walking trails called Olle, which means “a winding path to your front door” in the local dialect. They cover almost the entire island, and along their route people can see the sea, rock formations, caves and more. There are interesting rock sculptures known as Dol Hareubang, which are statues carved from the volcanic rock all over the island. The name translates to “grandfather made of stone”, and they get this name because they all have elderly features. They are also considered to be guardians of the island that ward off evil spirits and demons.
Dol Hareubang. Charity Davenport. CC0 1.0
Beyond the natural beauty of the island and the stone statues, Jeju Island is home to a community of women, known as Haenyeo. They are all divers that gather food from the sea like oysters, sea urchins and abalone. The thing that makes them truly unique, however, is the fact that they don’t use oxygen masks. They free dive down to as deep as 30 feet below the surface and can hold their breath for minutes. Girls start learning how to swim, dive and help the women from as young as 8 years old, and there are women still diving who are in their 80s. The women have been the ones to do this for many years, in part because there were a lot more of them than men on the island. The Korean War also caused an increase in women being more economically engaged.
Haenyeo are considered to be the first working mothers of South Korea and have made diving their profession. There are no men participating in the dives and harvesting of seafood. Like many places, South Korean society has been typically male dominated, so the women on Jeju Island are very different. They have been diving for the past 1700 years, but after an increase in the demand for seafood the haenyeo were doing well and they started trying to provide better education and other career options. As a result, many women choose to not follow the diver tradition and the number of haenyeo has decreased since then. A lot of them are also older women who have been doing it for their entire lives, while the younger and middle-aged women chose to follow career paths. The women’s work and contributions have led to them being mentioned in UNESCO’s list of Korea’s cultural heritage in 2016.
Katherine Lim
Katherine is an undergraduate student at Vassar College studying English literature and Italian. She loves both reading and writing, and she hopes to pursue both in the future. With a passion for travel and nature, she wants to experience more of the world and everything it has to offer.
