The Island of Sea Women(94)
Joon-lee just laughed. “Mother, Switzerland is not a fairy world. It is not a land of goddesses either. I will leave Jeju just as Kim Mandeok did. And I’ll buy myself a bicycle.”
The Vast Unknowable Sea
August–September 1961
Three months after the first visit, Dr. Park and his team returned, as promised. Then three months after that, at the end of August, they came again. For two weeks each visit, the same group of eighteen women—nine divers and nine nondivers—had light suppers, rested on cots in the mornings, and were tested. This time, though, we were driven by boat to the underwater canyon where Mi-ja and I had taken our first dive. The scientists selected the site for the very reason that my mother had chosen it: the geography allowed the nondivers to hover above the rocks that came nearly to the surface, while the divers could go down twenty meters into the coldness of the canyon. The nondivers still couldn’t last more than a few minutes, but with the warmer weather, we divers went back and forth for at least two and a half hours before returning to the boat. We learned that our temperatures didn’t drop as much as they did in winter, which seemed obvious to us. But now Dr. Park had the precise measurement he desired: 35.3 degrees Centigrade in water that was 26 degrees or 95.5 Fahrenheit in water that was almost 79 degrees. “Very impressive,” he said to us. “Not many people can function as well as you do when their temperatures fall so far below normal.”
The scientists added a new dimension: food. They came to our houses three times a day to measure everything before we put it in our mouths. They asked us the same question we often joked about in the bulteok. “Who should have more food—a man or a woman?” We knew the answer, but their tests proved it. A haenyeo not only needed 3,000 calories a day compared to a nondiving woman, who typically ate 2,000 calories a day, but also ate more than any man they tested in Hado. “We have not seen this magnitude of voluntary heat loss in any other human,” Dr. Park effused, “but look how you make up for it!” But he was studying us at a very different point in our lives. I remembered back to when Mi-ja and I were girls just learning to dive, later when we were in Vladivostok, and later still in the lean war years. We’d never had enough to eat, and we’d both been very thin.
Every woman—diver and nondiver—wanted to be hospitable. Each woman prepared her best dishes, so she could offer a meal to the scientist who came to visit. In my household, Do-saeng, Min-lee, and I pushed aside Kyung-soo, who usually did the cooking, so we could make the types of dishes we ate in the bulteok: grilled conch, steamed blue abalone, small crabs stir-fried with beans, or octopus on skewers. As the scientist of the day sat on our floor, eating, Joon-lee asked endless questions. What was it like in Seoul? What university did he attend? Was it better to be a research scientist or a medical doctor? Those men answered Joon-lee’s questions, but they watched her older sister whenever she crossed the room.
When Dr. Park finally came to my house, I invited him to sit and poured him a bowl of rice wine. The low table was already set with side dishes: kimchee, pickled beans, lotus root, boiled squash, sliced black pig, salted damselfish, spiced bracken, and boiled, seasoned, and slivered sea cucumber. Just as we were about to start eating, Joon-lee’s teacher came to the door. Teacher Oh bowed and then made an announcement.
“Your daughter has won an island-wide contest for fifth graders,” he said. “Joon-lee will now represent our side of Mount Halla in an academic competition in Jeju City. This is a great honor.”
Joon-lee jumped to her feet and hopped around the room. Her sister and brother congratulated her. Do-saeng cried happy tears. I couldn’t stop smiling. After Dr. Park said, “The daughter is smart because the mother is smart,” I really couldn’t stop smiling.
I invited Teacher Oh to join us. Space was made for him, and more rice wine was poured. When Dr. Park inquired about the competition, Teacher Oh responded, “Joon-lee is not just a bright girl. She’s the brightest student in our elementary school. The children from schools in Jeju City will have received better opportunities, but I believe she has a good chance of winning the entire competition.”
These words of praise should have humbled my daughter. Instead, they encouraged her to ask, “If I win, Mother, will you buy me a bicycle?”
My answer escaped my mouth too quickly. “Riding a bicycle is not for you. Everyone knows that riding one will give a girl a big butt.”
Dr. Park raised his eyebrows, and my argument didn’t sway Joon-lee one bit. “But if I win,” she said, “don’t you think I should be rewarded?”
Rewarded? Impatience flushed my face. The scientist politely changed the subject. “Did you catch this squid yourself?” he asked. “If so, can you tell me about the drying process?”
After dinner, Wan-soon came to collect my daughters for their nightly walk. Teacher Oh left with them, and Do-saeng returned to the little house, taking Kyung-soo with her. I inquired about Dr. Park’s life in Seoul; he tried to delve deeper into my life as a haenyeo. It all went about as well as could be expected, which is to say fine. He was just leaving when Min-lee burst through the door.
“Mother, come quick!”
I slipped on my sandals and ran after her. Dr. Park trotted behind me. We followed Min-lee to the main square. There in a heap lay Joon-lee, her arms and legs tangled with a bicycle. She was crying softly. Yo-chan crouched over her. Of course. Yo-chan. His bicycle. My daughter. A wave of anger washed over me.