The Island of Sea Women(90)
“I’m using a nine-liter Collins spirometer to measure oxygen and convert that to kilocalories to establish a basal metabolism rate as a percent deviation from the DuBois standard,” Dr. Lee intoned, speaking into a tape recorder.
It sounded like gibberish, but Joon-lee seemed to soak up every word and action.
The next step was conducted by Dr. Bok, who put a glass tube in my mouth. He reported that I had a normal temperature of 37 degrees Centigrade and 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Across the aisle, my older daughter giggled when one of the white doctors placed something on her chest that had tubes running up to his ears. I did not like that one bit, nor did I like the idea that he would do the same to me. I was about to take my girls and walk out of there when Dr. Park cleared his throat.
“Yesterday I told you something you must know already. You have a greater tolerance for hypothermia than any other humans on the planet. In Australia, aborigines walk naked, even in winter, but their temperatures rarely fall below thirty-five degrees Centigrade. Men and women who swim across wide channels lose a lot of body warmth, but even they rarely drop below thirty-four point four degrees Centigrade. Gaspé fishermen and British fish filleters spend their days with their hands immersed in cold salt water, but it is only their hands. And then there are Eskimos. Their temperatures stay within the normal range. We believe that’s because they have a diet high in protein, and they wear so many clothes.”
The way he spoke was strange, but his animated bearing was even more foreign. Still, I wasn’t a fool, and I suspected he was using his energetic manner to distract us from what the other doctors were doing to us. One of them put a band around my upper arm and squeezed a rubber ball, which caused the band to swell and press into my flesh. What happened next was so swift that none of us had the time to process it fully. Gu-ja had the same type of band around her arm, but the scientists didn’t like what they were seeing. “Her blood pressure is too high to qualify her to be in the study,” I overheard one of the men say. Before anyone could object, our collective’s chief was escorted from the tent.
Dr. Park didn’t acknowledge what to me seemed stunning. He just kept talking. “We want to see how long you can stay in the water and what that immersion does to your body temperatures. We hypothesize that your shiver index is a latent human adaptation to severe hypothermia that is rarely, if ever, experienced in modern man or, in this case, woman.”
Of course, we had no idea what he was talking about.
“Could this ability have something to do with your thyroid function?” he asked, as though we might actually know the answer. “Does something in your endocrine system allow you to perform in the cold as well as small animals do on land and in water? Could you be like the Weddell seal that—”
“Tell that man to stop touching my daughter!” Gu-sun sat up on her cot and glowered so fiercely at a white doctor that he raised his hands and backed away from Wan-soon. “You need to tell us exactly what you’re doing or we’re leaving.”
Dr. Park smiled. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. You and the others here are helping to create science—”
“Are you going to answer my question?” Gu-sun asked as she swung her legs off the cot. A few others did as well. Haenyeo or non-haenyeo, we didn’t like these men touching our daughters.
Dr. Park clasped his hands together. “I don’t think you understand. We respect what you do. You’re famous!”
“Famous to whom?” Gu-sun asked.
He ignored the question and went on. “All we’re asking is that you go in the water, so we can measure your shiver threshold.”
“Shiver threshold,” Gu-sun echoed. She snorted and jutted her chin, but I could tell she didn’t plan on leaving. By staying in the study, she had something over her sister, who’d been dismissed. None of this was to say I was comfortable. My desire to protect myself and Min-lee fought against my desire to help my younger daughter.
“Is there a way you can do the tests without . . .” I was a widow and hadn’t been touched by a man since the Bukchon massacre.
Dr. Park’s eyes widened in understanding, and his enthusiasm disappeared. “We’re doctors and scientists,” he said stiffly. “You are our subjects. We don’t look at you like that.”
But every man looked at women like that.
“And even if we did, we have this little girl here,” he added. “We need to protect her from anything improper. Her presence protects you too.”
Joon-lee blushed, but it was obvious she enjoyed being singled out.
“She helped bring you here,” he said. “Let’s see how else she can help.”
With that, the men went back to conducting their tests. They didn’t let Joon-lee handle a single instrument, but they used her to explain to us—in words we could understand—what they were doing. It turned out our average age was thirty-nine years. We averaged 131 centimeters in height and fifty-one kilos in weight. (Or, as one of the American scientists put it, “A little over fifty-one inches tall and one hundred and twelve pounds.”) About fifteen minutes later, the doctors asked us to remove our land clothes. The haenyeo among us had never been shy about showing our bodies. We’d all seen each other naked, and we’d lived for generations with the stigma of nakedness. Still, despite Dr. Park’s sentiments about the team being doctors and scientists, it was embarrassing to step out of our trousers and jackets in front of them. The women who weren’t divers were the most uncomfortable. They’d probably never worn so few clothes in front of a man apart from their own husbands, and it proved too much for one woman, who decided to drop out of the study. Now the haenyeo and non-haenyeo were equal again, with nine women on each team.