Island of Sea Women

 The island of Sea Women by Lisa See. 2019 385pg  14/5/20   again 30/8/20  BC Far East

Young-sook  narrator.

The story is about 2 friends from childhood Young-Sook and Mi-ja.Yo-chan is Mi-ja son. Janet is the American granddaughter  Clara is the American great granddaughter of Mi-ja.
Sun-sil is Young-sook's mother and head of the collective. Young-sook married Jun-bu, her oldest daughter is 1)Min-Lee, then 2)Kyung-soo and 3) Joon-lee 4) son Kyung-soo born after his father's death. 
Yu-ri become an invalid almost killed by the Octopus her mother is Do-Saeng, her brother is Jun-bu
Mi-ja was an orphan daughter of a collaborator and married collaborator Sang-mun 
Kang sisters Gu-ja and Gu-sun's daughter is Wan-soon part of their diving co-op
Joon-lee  the narrators daughter marries Yo-chan i.e. Mi-ja's son
Note- I don't intend talking about the History of Korea but the following are mentioned as a background to the story. 
Timeline
Till the 13 century Korea was matrilineal thus the husband came to live with his wife's family. Then it became patrilineal.
1404 till then you had the Tamna Kingdom with Chinese  type culture on Jeju
13th Century the Mongols invaded and set up horse breeding grazing on the island.
1906 Translated into Japanese, The novel Heidi by Johanna Spyri 1881  was very well received.
1910 till 1945 Korea was colonized Japan, This was  tacitly accepted by US President Widrow Wilson
1938 April The book starts  and ends in 2008 Jeju island Korea.
*1948 to 1960 Rhee Syngman appointed first S Korean president, US educated
        Third of April incident -massacre
1949 Bukchon Massacre the city became a Village of widows.
1950 Seoul fell to the North and thousands of refugees fled.
1950 -1953 Korean War
1954 after over 7 years of insurgency the last rebels were killed with 300 villages and 4 thousand homes destroyed on Jeju.  
1961 Western doctors check women divers for shiver threshold, hypothermia, thyroid function.
*1962 President Park Chung-hee came to power by a military coup. Outlawed Shaminism and ruled till 1979 when assassinated.
1963 Escalation of Vietnam war. End of Vietnam war 1975
1976  "Aunt Suni" a book by the writer Hyun Ki- young on the massacres.
*1980 President Chung doo hwan till 1988 also ruthless dictatorship
*1988 to 1993 President Roh Tea-woo. ex army man when Darangshi cave  horror was exposed ordered it sealed again.
1991 fall of Berlin Wall and the end of the Cold War.
1995 list finally published of all who died in the massacres.
1998 50th anniversary of the 4.3 incident in Bukchon a memorial park was built
*1998 - 2003 President  Kim Dae-jung won a Nobel prize for democratizing South Korea.
2000 Speaking about the massacre's is finally decriminalized.
2008 Story ends or starts
Jeju today has a population of half a million and tourism is its main industry.
 Korea has the best example of Confucianism in its culture today. The island measures 73 km by 41km
-----The writer is of Chinese extraction has written about the Chinese of California and American and also about women their role in society.  Korea is a society where to day few women have had big roles in politics and business. This is the story of an island of South Korea that was in a very strategic position. 
We see that it is a society dominated by women and the men look after the children or are working in Japan. Matrifocal society. Women work because historically men fisherman were taxed. They make money and provide for the family and for their brothers to study.
Later on we see Young Sook married to Jan-bu a teacher and she returns to diving as this was part of her life he is enlightened and wants to educate his daughters. She points out that he got an education because his mother, his sister and his wife worked to pay for it. Where will be money to pay for the daughters education. 
1  The role of women
The book starts in April 1938  and ends in 2008 Jeju island Korea. "Every woman  who enters the sea carries a coffin on her back."
haenyeo =diver. There are 7 women diving co-ops on Hado. A quarter of the island population lived in Japan as a ferry ticket cost half the price of a bag of rice. Warm up as best you could before going into the sea. There are rules and the protect the "wet fields" months that you are forbidden to harvest a conch or abalone. They dive as deep as 60 feet. " A greedy diver is a dead diver" Shamanism outlawed by the Japanese.
When a women get married she has the best food for 3 days that must last a lifetime. 
 The story is over 80 years. The sea women supported their families over millenia. A Matrifocal society.  With the arrival of the Americans, Western and Confusion male dominated ways are imposed.
“  The author likes to write on themes of women empowerment. 
A large number of the men were killed and it became a society where women had to do everything. Shaamin Kim was a women spiritual leader. Young-sook alone supports her daughters in education to make her dead husband dream come true. However you need son's to pray for you when you are dead. But she said to her husband - Your mother, your sister, your wife all worked to send you to study. You get 3 levels of relationship that of the women working and men looking after the children, where the man works the wife is a house keeper but the narrator is allowed to hire a nanny and have a career.  Now her academic daughter Joon-lee visits and she manages to get her to come be with the divers to learn about the sociology of the divers co-op the Matrifocal system..
2 Ecology they had to protect the wet fields  The use of pigs
3 Death and survival and spiritualism. The women's religion was Shamism with a women preacher yet they needed sons to pray for them when they were in heaven. the times you couldn't dive. 
Her freind  Mi-ja where Confusionism comes back.and is a male dominated society.
1954  Jeju is a society of mostly women
4 The enemy varied.     The Japanese  The Americans  The North Koreans
The City Dwellers     The Police and the Army
The guilt by association. 
The Japanese killed Sun-sil grandparents and calls them cloven hoofed beasts" Now her father-n law is in Hiroshoma working and killed by American bomb.
5  The friendship between her and the collaborator daughter Mi -ja. These 2 were bosem friends right from The begining when Mija was 7 years old she then was in the diving co-op trained by the narrators mother, she had a shared experience in Vladivostoc togerher. All the way through as illiterates they made the charcoal rubbings that Mija kept, they knew about ice cream and bread as well as the fact that the American ship that searched for weapons only bought proper fish, not sea food. In Vietnam war period American were prepared to eat sea food (they were no longer culturally isolated. When Mi-ja left and sold her pigs. Young Sook goes to her house and like being close to her things and the book of coal rubbings.Later on the narrators daughter comes to collect this for Mi-ja.
6   The issue of Forgiveness is the most important theme. Mi-ja is forgiven for steeling baby yams at the begining of the book Young sook had to forgive herself forYu'ri becoming disabled then  her mothers death. She was married to Yu-ri's brother and saddled with looking after his sister  for the rest of her life.
Mi-ja felt blamed for her mother death in her childbirth
Mi-ja is not able to give her the support she needs
Should we blame the Americans?” as they watch the massacre and did nothing to stop it.  Most of the population suffered from wounds of post traumatic stress.
 The novel part of the book is that the narrator was at the Butchon massacre's and asked her friend to take one of her children and to protect them as her husband was a collaborator.  She refused and Youngs husband one son and sister in law were executed. This broke up the friendship. The book ends the Mi-ja was raped by Sung and forced to marry him she and her son were treated badly and she could not take on another kid under those circumstances. She had hated her husband and never wanted to have a kid by him.
Young-sook is able to make rubbing of the names on the memorial of her husband, son and sister in law.
 She was one of the few families that gave all 3 of her daugters schooling.  Bicycle is for boys not girls.
Killer and children of killers run the island. Reading the novel Heidi  her children asked what bread and milk was.  She had tasted bread and ice cream in Vladivostoc.
Hagui a villiage divided by victum and perpertrators declares forgiveness and unites. Unfair for victums to forgive those who raped turtured and killed or burned villiages. 
Wan-soon was diving with the team and dissapear completely, it appears that she was pregnant by Yo-chan (like father like son) and took her own life.  The scandle is too much for Mi-ja who leaves with her son. Young sook becomes chief diver.
Clara tells Young Sook  Yo-Chan whose wife died soon after his daughter was born. Mi-ja was brought to the US to look after her Janet and later looked after Clara and her brother, Mi-ja had become a Catholic and prayed for forgiveness. Buddist quote "To understand is to forgive" Mi-ja walks with a limp caused by her husband. Would you have sacrificed your life to save Sang -mun and Yo-chan?  
The Dead can forgive me why cant you. Mi ji had to live with her husband so that he would cancel the guilt by association to do with Joon-lee this was also part of her repentace. Why did she not save them she didn't know how to deal with her husband and he beat her up in the end as he would have saved them and she ended up in hospital. They had been good to him when he was recuperation from suffering in the North. Mi ja's husband beat her up so that she limped because she ambarrised him in front of his superiors and the ghosts of the narrators husband his wife and son would torment him.
By not forgiving she was erasing all that was beautiful. She never went to her daughters wedding. She asked if she should visit her daughter, and Shaman Kin advised  her to forgive as everyone lost people.
The relationship of the Gung sister after the death of  Wan-soon. Gung- sun says that she herself was pregnant and her husband agreed to marry her. The mother never knew if  Wan-soon was pregnant or died by accident.  The letter she got from America to say she was dying of cancer was censored later she never read the letters that arrived every month. Letters kept arriving which she put into a box without opening, pages of the coal rubbing were in every letter. Later the letter arrived with stamps and were sealed.
Mi-ja had not said anything as she was planning to die with her friends till her husband arrived with her son and she suddenly felt she could not leave him an orphan, she could not contemplating returning to her husband and he beat her up so badly that she landed in hospital and now had a limp. Sung-mun was scared of how the God's would treat him for not supporting friends. He had raped Mi-ja and that is why she was forced to marry him even though she never fell pregnant at the time.  Mija in a recording possibly after her death wants the narrators forgivenes, that she could't get while she was alive.
The book ends with Clara and Janet are interested in learning what it is like to dive and collect food from the sea bottom mor food than 30 refridgerators.
Industrialazation on the mainland lured men away and a man takes over instructing the co-op while theri daughter are in the tourist industry. The authorities want them to stop keeping pigs as a toilet and install indoor plumbing and telephones as part of tourism. The US Peace Corp comes to keep tabs out the Reds.  South Korea has more people that have cosmetic  surgary than any ohter country.
The 4.3 incident
The North West Young Mens Association  League that escaped North Korea and were violently anti -communist.
Di-saeng mentions that her husband was in Hiroshimo and died without family a victum of he atomic bomb.
The teacher husband brought her to the school at Bukchon from their villiage Hado
The island of Sea Women by Lisa See. 2019 385pg  14/5/20  Far East History
13th Century the Mongols invaded and set up horse breeding grazing on the island  Later the king put exiles here.
The South Korean Isle of Jeju an old women sit sorting sea weed washed onto the shore she are between 80 and 90 years old. (haenjeo sea women)  It is a society focused on women. This island has 3 things in abundance wind, stones and women. Her son wanted to turn her home into a restaurant for tourists and she could retire but she refused.
  She feels uncomfortable on seeing half and half children from America/
1938 April The latrine is above the pigs who eat crap. They lived in a stone house as an extended family and she had to do 3 trips to get enough water for the morning and collect dung for the fire. While the sea women worked the men met and looked after in small infants.
Korea was colonized  Japan from 1910 till 1945
Illiterate people kept rubbings on paper using a piece of coal to remember things specially when they travelled. They had small plots where they grew millet, rapeseed, rice barley soybean. . Millet for the poor, rice and barley for the rich. Sweet potato was divided into those for eating soon, those to be sold to the distillery for alcohol and the rest were sliced, dried and stored for winter. Squid was dried in the sun. Sea urchins, conch, agar and kelp were harvested. These women regarded themselves as guardian of the sea. Sea creatures have perished by change of climate, over fishing and human disregard.
 In spring they renewed the roof thatch. Insect lava of the old thatch was eaten. Ashes and seaweed used as fertilizer. Raw persimmon juice used to preserve cloth. Under the Japanese roads had been built on the island. In Hado a night school was set up for adults mostly women but they were considered insurgent by the Japanese. Japan used the island to bomb China. There were 3 Japanese air bases on the island. Sons and daughters of Japanese collaborators married each other  It was dangerous for menstruating women to be in the water as blood attracted sharks. The women worked as a shared cooperative but some articles they caught were private. Marriage was by parents matching their children.
1944 a quarter of the island population had moved to Japan especially Osaka where men worked in iron and enamel production and women in spinning and sewing. The Japanese forced the collection of seaweed to use in gunpowder and pressed boys into the Japanese Army. These Sea women were offered work off Vladivostok, where they saw modern society Russia kept out of the war with Japan. An American patrol checked they were not smuggling weapons and were interested in buying fish not seafood.  There sea women saved money or could borrow money easily to send their brothers and sons to school. So many from Jeju had studied in Japan that it had the highest education level in Korea. 
At the Moscow and Cairo conference the subject about making Korea independent was discussed. The Japanese made Jeju and armed fortress as the allies got closer to attack mainland Japan. Korea was under joint trusteeship of Russia, China north of the 38th parallel America and the UK south of that. The US replaced the Japanese flag on the island. Japanese ships and weapons were exploded  and dumped in the sea. Thousand of Japanese soldiers businessmen and soldiers returned to Japan and from Osaka and Japan returned Jeju islanders. Those who collaborated with Japan as well as people who escaped from the north and hated communism  now collaborated with the US Army. The former collaborators had been put in charge of rationing and stole provisions and sold them on the black market. Weapons left by the Japanese were discovered on Mount Halla and used in an uprising. Local teachers were replaced by North Koreans escapees.
1948 to 1960 Rhee Syngman appointed first S Korean president, US educated. Jeju now placed under marshal law. Third of April incidence?  Of those involved the ones perceived as  most dangerous were shot
1949 Bukchon Massecre the city became a Village of widows. The island was cut off from supplies. The US turned a blind eye to they way Koreans crushed Koreans as part of the Cold War.
1950 Seoul fell to the North and thousands of refugees fled the  mainland to Jeju
1954 after over 7 years of insurgency the last rebels were killed with 300 villages and 4 thousand homes destroyed on Jeju. The next generation of women went onto  becoming educated and business and  tourism took over 
1961 On Jeju since there were so few men to drink and gamble, the women could gather more wealth.
1962   President Park Chunk came to power by a military coup and ruled till assassinated in 1979
1980 Chung doo hwan till 1988 also dictatorship
.  Shamanism was outlawed, people got help from the Catholic church some turned to Buddism and Confucianism.
Scientific convention came to examine cold water stress and tolerance of hypothermia "thyroid function ? The women's body temp dropped to 32C after a half hour in the water and then returned to normal after half an hour out. Diving did cause loss of hearing. aboriginals are exposed to heat and cold without clothes.
In more recent times they used wet suites to stay in the water longer and against jellyfish stings and watersnake bites as well as weights and fins to go down quicker.
1976 Aunt Suni a book by the writer Hyun Ki- young on the massacre's. .
1998 Memorial built  under President Kim Dae -jung. Thus it took 50 years for the truth to out.
To protect the fishing the authorities limited divers to one person per household but this meant that mothers could not train daughters. During the Vietnamese war US troops had vacations on the island also US Peace Corp program. Plumbing, electricity ,telephones, paved roads and corrugated iron replace straw roofs. Many Koreans migrated to the US.
---------------------------------------------
 
x