Лиза Си - The Island of Sea Women

The night before the march, Mi-ja stayed at our house. It was early January and too cold to be outside gazing at stars, but Father had taken Third Brother out to see if he could walk him to sleep. Mother asked us to join her and Grandmother in the main room.

“Do you want to come tomorrow?” Mother asked me.

“Yes! Please!” I was thrilled to be asked.

Mi-ja kept her eyes cast down. Mother liked Mi-ja and had done many things for her, but maybe an invitation to an anti-Japanese rally was too much to expect.

“I spoke to your aunt,” Mother informed Mi-ja. “What a disagreeable woman.”

Mi-ja looked up, pathetically hopeful.

“I told her that if you accompany us it might do much to bleach the stain you carry of your father’s past actions,” Mother went on.

“Ieeee,” Mi-ja squealed with joy.

“Then all is settled. Now listen to Grandmother.”

Mi-ja nestled next to me. Grandmother often told us stories she’d heard from her grandmother, who’d heard from her grandmother, and so on. It was through her that we learned about the past but also about what was happening in the world around us. Mother must have wanted to remind us of some of these things before the march.

“In the long-ago days,” Grandmother began, “three brothers—Ko, Bu, and Yang—bubbled out of the earth to become the founders of Jeju. They worked hard, but they were lonely. One day, three sisters—all princesses—arrived in a boat heavy with horses, cattle, and the five seed grains, which had been given to them by Halmang Jacheongbi, the goddess of love. Together, these three couples created the Kingdom of Tamna, which lasted one thousand years.”

“Tamna means ‘Island Country,’ ” Mi-ja recited, showing how much she’d absorbed from past tellings.

“Our Tamna ancestors were seafarers,” Grandmother continued. “They traded with other countries. By always looking outward, they taught us to be independent. They gave us our language—”

“But my father said the Jeju language also has words from China, Mongolia, Russia, and from other countries too,” Mi-ja interrupted again. “Like Japan. Fiji and Oceania too. We even have Korean words from hundreds, maybe thousands, of years ago. That’s what he said…”

Mi-ja’s voice trailed off. She could be enthusiastic, and she sometimes liked to show off the knowledge she had learned in Jeju City, but Grandmother never liked being reminded of Mi-ja’s father. Tonight, instead of hissing her disapproval, Grandmother simply went on. “The Tamna taught us that the outside represents danger. For centuries, we’ve been in a struggle against the Japanese, who’ve had to pass by us on their way—”

“To loot China,” I said. I hadn’t heard of Fiji or Oceania, but I knew some things.

Grandmother nodded, but her look of irritation made me decide to keep my mouth shut from then on. “Around seven hundred years ago, the Mongols invaded Jeju. They raised and bred horses in the mid-mountain area. They called the island the Star Guardian God of Horses. That’s how much they loved our pastures. The Mongols also used Jeju as a stepping-stone to invade Japan and China. We can’t hate them too much, though. Many of them married Jeju women. Some say it is from them that we gained our strength and perseverance.”

Mother poured hot water into cups for us to drink. Once everyone was served, she picked up where Grandmother had left off. “Five hundred years ago, we became part of Korea and were ruled by kings. We were mostly left alone, because every king saw this as a place to exile aristocrats and scholars who opposed him. They brought with them Confucianism, which taught that social order is maintained through—”

“The self, the family, the country, and the world,” Mi-ja recited. “They believed that every person on earth lives under someone else—all people beneath the king, children beneath their parents, and wives beneath their husbands—”

“And now we have the Japanese.” Grandmother snorted. “They’ve turned us into a stepping-stone again, building airfields on our island so their planes can take off to bomb China—”

“We can’t stop everything they do,” Mother interrupted, “but maybe we can force some change. I want you girls to be a part of that.”

The next morning, Mi-ja was waiting for us in her usual spot in the olle. The air was frosty, and steam mushroomed from our mouths. We continued walking through the olles, picking up Do-saeng, Yu-ri, and other women and girls, all of us wearing white diving kerchiefs to mark us as past, present, and future haenyeo.

“Hurray for the independence of Korea!” we shouted.

“Stop unfair labor practices!” our voices rang out together.

The five-day market in Sehwa was always crowded, but, on that day, it was even more so. The five leaders from the Hado Night School took turns making speeches. “Join us in our march to the district office. Help us deliver our demands. We’re strongest when we dive together. We’re even stronger when the collectives come together. We’ll make the Japanese listen!”

Top-level haenyeo led us, but it was the presence of grandmothers, who remembered the time before the Japanese arrived, and girls like Mi-ja and me, who’d lived our entire lives under Japanese rule, that reminded everyone of our purpose. This wasn’t just about the forty percent discount price that the Japanese were imposing on the haenyeo. It was about freedom and our Jeju independent ways. It was about the strength and courage of Jeju women.

Mi-ja’s eyes glittered in a way I’d never seen. She often felt alone, but now she was part of something much larger than she was. And Mother was right. Mi-ja’s presence did seem to make an impression on the women in our group, because several of them came up to walk by her side for a while so they could hear her shout, “Hurray for the independence of Korea!” I was excited too, but for very different reasons. This was the farthest I’d been from home. I had Mi-ja by my side. We held hands, while raising our other arms, fists clenched, to shout the slogans. We’d been growing closer—between all the things I’d taught her and all the imagination, stories, and joy she’d given me—but in this moment, we were one person.

By the time we reached Pyeongdae, thousands of women had come together. Mi-ja and I linked arms; Mother and Do-saeng walked shoulder to shoulder. We entered the district office’s compound. The five organizers climbed the steps of the main building and began addressing the crowd. The speeches were more or less the same as the ones they’d made earlier, but they seemed to generate more energy with so many people listening and reacting, with shouts echoing what had just been said.

“End colonization!” Kang Gu-ja called out.

“Freedom for Jeju!” Kang Gu-sun roared.

But no one could top my mother’s voice. “Independence for Korea!” For everything Mother did in her life, and for all the ways she protected and inspired the women in her diving collective, this was the moment of which I was most proud.

Japanese soldiers came to stand between those making speeches and the front door to the district office. Other soldiers took positions on the edges of the crowd. The situation felt tense, with so many people shoved together. At last, the door opened. A Japanese man stepped out. Out of habit, out of fear, the five Hado women bowed deeply. From her low position, the one standing in the middle extended her hands to present the list of demands. Wordlessly, the man took it, went back inside, and shut the door. We all looked at each other. Now what? Now nothing, because there would be no negotiations that day. We all walked back to our villages.