What if someone told you that mermaids were real?
Forget fish tails, we mean women who can hold their breath for minutes on end as they dive under the sea several hundred times a day.
These are South Korean haenyeo divers, a community of women on Jeju Island who have been free diving (without oxygen) for seafood for centuries.
Now, with most of them in their 60s, 70s and 80s, their culture and way of life is at risk as there are fewer young women doing this work, and the sea may change beyond recognition.
It is these facts that prompted US-Korean filmmaker Sue Kim to meet with education advocate and Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafazai to share their story with the world.
The daughter of Korean immigrants, US-born Kim first encountered haenyeo as a child, on vacation in South Korea.
“I was impressed for the same reasons you see in the film – they were incredibly brave and energetic and confident. And they were loud … they were fighting and laughing, and they just let out this tremendous energy and took their place with such carelessness,” Lee said.
“I just fell in love with that vibe and energy when I was a little girl. So I grew up always admiring them. They were the version of Korean femininity that I was inspired by and wanted to emulate,” she adds. .
“I was very shocked not knowing about haenyeo as many people didn’t, I agreed right away,” explained Malala who was the producer of the film.
“The story started to pick up about 10 years ago when I found out that this was probably the last generation of haenyeo,” explained Lee. “It was an urgent obligation to make sure someone was writing… while we still had them and were still able to tell us their story in their own words.”
The film follows the women doing their hard work during the harvest season and explores the challenges they face when getting in or out of the water.
They go out diving at 6am every day. They hold their breath for a few minutes, come back up and back down again – between 100 and 300 times per session.
Just imagine the fitness levels. They harvest for four hours and spend another three or four hours wrapping and preparing their catch.
There are various theories as to why women began to take this traditionally male job many years ago. The Visit Jeju website states that the number of men was low overall in the population due to a large proportion of them dying in rough seas while fishing boats.
As a result, there were not many men to harvest the sea, so gradually women took over the job.
‘Sad granny trope’
This is the first major documentary about haenyeo and Kim says it was difficult to access.
“Hanyeo communities are very diverse,” he explained.
“They are rural communities living in fishing areas. They don’t interact much with the cities of Jeju.”
Kim found a researcher with a history with private organizations and contacts in the community.
“So this woman… quieted me, then I went down and spent two weeks… with the Haenyeo community and gained their trust. And I did that by listening a lot.
“They actually wanted to talk about all the things that were happening to them.
“They wanted to talk about the fact that they felt they were about to disappear. They wanted to talk about what was happening in the ocean that no one seemed to know or care about.”
Kim says she had to reassure women that she will not look down on them or feel sorry for working until they are old.
“They love to work! They think they are strong and powerful by doing so.”
Kim told them she would show them their “true strength.”
“‘I promise I will not take this sad grandmother’s award because that is not how I see you, I see you as heroes’,” he explained to the group.
“After that, we became a family.”
The risks are great. There is no insurance available for this job, as it is very risky. And now the ocean – and women’s livelihoods – are at risk.
Global warming is causing less marine life, especially in shallow waters; deep diving is very difficult without oxygen.
Most of the film focuses on women’s protests against radioactive water from the Japanese Fukishima plant being released into the sea (Jeju on the border with Japan), which takes one of the haeneyeos, Soon Deok Jang, directly to the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.
The message from experts is that, surprisingly, the release is safe and has received the green light from the International Atomic Energy Agency – but not all scientists agree on the impact it will have.
While haenyeo harvest seafood, there are rules in place about when they are allowed to harvest other seafood, which helps protect the environment.
Another reason they don’t use oxygen tanks is that “they believe that by trapping air, that will allow them a natural population of marine life to harvest,” Kim explained, which helps avoid overfishing.
Perhaps the biggest threat comes from within, where few young women choose to do this difficult work.
A training school was established in the early 2000s to try to stem the declining numbers but only 5% of those who attend become haenyeos.
All is not lost though. This film introduces us to two young women from another island who have gained followers on social media and reveal the flexible hours that work can give to family life. One of them had to learn to swim at the age of 30 to do this job.
Older women meet them at festivals and demonstrations – they call them “their children” while they are called “aunties” in return.
Yousafzai is inspired: “When I look at haenyeo and how it works together, it just reminds me of the collective work that women do everywhere, including the activism that an Afghan woman is doing to raise awareness of the systemic oppression they face. .”
“When a girl watches this documentary, I want her to believe in herself and realize that she can do anything. She can stay under water for two to three minutes without oxygen,” he said. take swimming classes to learn to swim! I’m at zero, but it inspired me to think about swimming.”
Last of the Sea Women is available on Apple TV+ from 11 October 2024.
Source link
