The Island of Sea Women(17)
“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.
Before we left, Mi-ja and I had to make a remembrance. I pointed to a Japanese character etched on a door to one of the buildings in the compound. Mother was speaking to her friends, and, now that the excitement was over, the soldiers had lost interest too, so no one paid us any attention as we walked to the door and began our ritual. It may not have been the best idea, though, because two things happened simultaneously: four guards ran over to see what we were doing, and Mother yelled at us. “Get away from there right now!” Mi-ja, with the piece of charcoal securely in her hand, and I, with the completed rubbing tight in mine, dashed through the milling women to Mother’s side. Hyng, but was she angry! But when we looked back at the soldiers, they were bent over, hands on their knees, laughing. It was many years before we learned that the character we’d chosen for our treasure said toilet.
* * *
The march was one of the three largest anti-Japanese protests ever to be held in Korea, the largest led by women, and the largest for the year with seventeen thousand supporters. It inspired another four thousand demonstrations in Korea over the following twelve months. The new Japanese governor of Jeju agreed to some demands. The discount ended, and a few crooked dealers were removed from their posts. All that was good, but other things also happened. We began to hear of one arrest, and then another. Thirty-four haenyeo—including the five original leaders from the Hado Night School—were arrested. Dozens of others were detained during a crackdown to stop additional protests. Rumors spread that some of the teachers at the Hado Night School were socialists or communists, and many of them went into hiding or moved away. None of that stopped Mother from attending classes.