Jeju Haenyeo Culture [Photo Essay Contest]
The Korea JoongAng Daily hosted its first photo essay contest for elementary, middle and high school students on the theme: “Promote the beauty of Korea to foreign countries." The contest ran from October to November. Photos containing scenes of traditional culture, family love, places to see and tasty treats in Korea were submitted for the contest.
DANIEL KANG from Korea International School Jeju won the participation prize in the high school category for this photo essay.
At the "13th UNESCO Youth Forum" held in Paris on Tuesday, November 15, the K-pop star group, “Seventeen” gave a solo speech with the message "Let's go together." This was the first time the K-pop singers had been assigned for an entire session at a UNESCO General Assembly event and spoke at UNESCO headquarters. It is no longer awkward that a Korean K POP Artist is invited as a representative speaker of UNESCO, a global organization of the United Nations. These days, when the scalability and impact of k culture are encroaching on the world more aggressively and faster than any other generation, I would like to break away from the category that is fashionable or fresh and focus more on our traditional and unique k culture.
Fellow foreigners, I would like to introduce you, to the "Jeju Haenyeo Culture."
Jeju Island, where I live, is a beautiful volcanic island in the southernmost part of Korea.
It is also a world geological treasure, with the value and culture of this beautiful island. It was recognized and listed as a World Natural Heritage in 2007, achieving three gold medals in the field of natural science of UNESCO.
But about 120 years ago, it became more known as a political exile, and in modern and contemporary history, it was a land of sadness that lived in front of the threat of death every day through forced conscription and labor during the Japanese occupation. All the men in the family were forcibly conscripted to Japan, or as the last retreat of the Japanese war, they were recruited as forced labor to dig underground caves or create a runway, and most of them didn’t come back home. After liberation in 1945, the Korean War broke out, and the mother took over as the head of her life, as men were conscripted again as soldiers. It was the sea where they, who lost their husbands, dived in to feed their children. In this land, which is poor for farming because of its volcanic topography, Women would hold their breath for a long time to collect seafood from the sea and make a living with it. We call these women, Haenyeo.
Seafood is collected by going 10m under the sea without any safety mechanism (mountain communication). If men went out on boats and engaged in coastal fishing, the Haenyeo collected abalone, conch, and sea urchins to make a living, and developed into a female-centered village community fishing.
Dangerous undersea harvesting is a dangerous task that can kill lives.
So the Haenyeos must move as a group.
Gathering at the village fishing ground, Haneyeos would get on a ship and head to the sea. The seniors would deliver diving techniques to the juniors, and both of them would team up to take responsibility for each other's safety in the sea.
Since a moment's greed leads to death, each other's promise to come back to the surface after a certain period of time takes precedence over the desire to collect. Sometimes, greed to pick another abalone in front of one's eyes and hold one's breath more would lead to someone’s death, so they obey the rule of "gathering only as much as the sea allows." After returning to land, it has a highly cohesive community character that divides yields and distributes profits through public operations.
You can feel the love of a strong mother in the Jeju Haenyeo culture, which has cultivated various community cultures such as praying for a safe return and good catch before entering the sea, the Haenyeo cultural music sung on ships going out to the sea, and the spirit of sharing. It is also noteworthy that it is a generational women's traditional culture in that grandmothers, mothers, and daughters live together as Haenyeo.
Jeju Haenyeo Culture, which represents Jeju's firm mother image, was adopted as a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2016 in recognition of its long-standing value. In particular, it was highly appreciated that it did not damage the marine environment by a nature-friendly collection procedure that only dives without an oxygen tank and that the technology to control the time of diving only with one's own breath was safely transmitted through a strong sense of community and training.
"Jeju Haenyeo Culture" is the model of a mother's obsession with life and victory through rough times such as forced conscription during the Japanese colonial eras and the Korean War. Their courage to make a living by diving into the sea bare-bodied and their reverence for nature that only harvests as much as it allows must receive an ovation and recognition. In a sense of community that protects each other's lives by becoming each other's watchmen, we can learn the worldview we need in the future.
By DANIEL KANG, Korea International School Jeju
with the Korea JoongAng Daily
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