Breathing Underwater
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- Transcript
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In Jeju Province, located off the southern coast of Korea, are the women of the sea who hold breath of life. Typhoons and the barren volcanic soil of the islands left the people enduring years of poor harvest and famine. For survival, women looked to the frigid sea. Haenyeos, women of the sea, still exist and they have been diving without air tanks for more than 1,000 years. They go into the waters of 10-to-20 meter depth to harvest seaweed and shellfish to make a living. They work from 7 to 8 hours a day without even a sip of fresh water. At the end of the day, they return with sumbisori, a whale-like noise at the near end of their breath.
They make a living in the same sea, but each has a different story. A mother and her daughters dive together, making themselves a third generation haenyeo. Another one started to diving to pay off the debts of her gambling husband. Many hold breath to support their children through school. A haenyeo continues her life at sea, despite having lost her daughter-a fellow haenyeo-to the sea. They have only one thing in common. All hold breath for life. For better life, they hold their breath as long as they can.
They community is divided into three tires - Group A, B and C, based on only one thing. The length of breath… One’s rank is determined by sum or breath. They believe sum is predetermined at birth. Group B shall never brave the waters of Group A. Every year, there are deaths due to mulsum or breathing underwater, refers to the water haenyeos drink when they run out of their own breath. It is the result of a failed attempt to push one’s limit. It represents a desire and temptation that could not be contained. Life, for these women of the sea, is about holding one’s breath, and containing and controlling one’s desire.
This film is a 7 year record of the lives of the haenyeos in Udo, an islet in the province of Jeju, known to be the birthplace of haenyeo. It is a close look into the lives of extinguishing strong women that stands on the boundary of life and death.
Citation
Main credits
Ko, Hŭi-yŏng (film director)
Ko, Hŭi-yŏng (screenwriter)
Kam, Byoung-seok (film producer)
Song, Ji-na (screenwriter)
Lee, Kyung Hee (narrator)
Other credits
Cinematography, Do-chul Hwang, Seong-mi Kim; editing, Hee-young Ko, Seung-wook Jeong; music, Bang-ean Yang.
Distributor subjects
No distributor subjects provided.Keywords
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Udo Island, Korea
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When younger, I hated my days stuck on an island. So I left when I was 23.
But I visited the island again.
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I was 40 and I was fighting a cancer.
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October. 2008
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I was exhausted by long-term anticancer therapies.
That’s when I met them, the women of the sea.
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Of course they were always there. Only, they were invisible to me before. This time, I saw them.
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They work in deep waters/ of the wild sea with no equipment to help them breathe.
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The folks used to call them as the women who earn money in the another world to spend them
In this world.
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This realisation came to me like a bolt of lightning. How fearless these women are as they
constantly straddle the fence between life and death in the wild, open sea.
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From that day, I started to document the lives of haenyeos for 7 years.
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Breathing Underwater
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The women of the sea begin their day by checking the conditions of the sea.
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(Hye-sook Cha / the village leader)
It seems the weather’s good enough to work today.
Wind is blowing from the west.
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The sea is calm on this side but we cannot work on the other side.
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She analyses the wind, the wave, and current more accurately
than any weather forecasters in the world.
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Once the decision is made, the women get busy.
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There are tried-and-true recipes.
Smear toothpaste with mugwort to prevent the fogging inside the goggles.
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Plug ear holes with chewed gums.
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Last but not least, take painkillers for headaches from underwater pressure.
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Now they report to the sea to work. The sea determines what time.
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This is the last stop where they get together to check their equipment.
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Just goggles, weight belts and hoes…
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There are four thousand five hundreds haenyeos on Jeju Island.
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Most of them learned to be haenyeo as soon as they could walk.
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The birth of a girl meant the birth of another haenyeo.
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Jeju Island is famous for its natural beauty and clean environment.
But it is not the scenery that the women of the sea are after.
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Sea snail,
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sea urchin,
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the most coveted of all, abalone,
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and the octopus are what they are after.
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But not everyone can catch them.
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Because there is a strict hierarchy in the sea.
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Those who work the bottom rung are called Dregs.
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Team Dregs
Works in foreshore shallower than 3-meter depth.
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The dregs work hard but their sea is not always generous.
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Ok Kim (53) / Team Dregs
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Ok Kim was a born dregs.
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She knew herself how deep she is allowed to dive.
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Jeong-ja Kim (86) / Group B
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Jeong-ja belongs to Group B
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Group B
5 to 9-meter depth. Harvests conch, octopus, etc.
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For 70 years, she has been working the same sea.
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This is where Group A works.
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Soon-ok Lee (53) / Group A
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Group A
15 to 20-meter depth.
Harvests valuable marine products i.e, abalone, sea hare, etc.
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Here they are rewarded with premium goods.
But the water pressure is heavier, and their breath more stretched.
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In a typical work day, Group A divers take more than 1,000 plunges for as long as 3 minutes
each. They must always have enough breath to come up to the surface.
When they come up they blow out a whistle-like noise.
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Sumbisori
The whistle-like sound the women divers make
when they surface from under the sea to take a breath.
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Sumbisori is part of the heanyeo breathing technique to work longer in the sea.
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Group A haenyeos work in the distant sea, 700 meters away from the coast.
They work 8 continuous hours, without even drinking water.
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Holding breath is the only way for them to work in the waters.
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Jeong-ja Kim (86)
A Haenyeo should not dive with tanks.
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If they catch easily with the equipment, the sea will run out of sea goods shortly.
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Yim-hwa Cha (48)
If we yield too much with tanks at once,
there will be nothing left for our next generations of Haenyeo.
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It came to me as a real surprise that the rank of the haenyeo is determined solely
by her breath capacity. And the breath is predetermined by heaven.
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Everyone has her own sum.
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10 meters, 18 meters, whatever depth your sum allows, that is it.
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Yim-hwa-Cha (84) / Group B
Ranks cannot be negotiated. There is nothing more to it.
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Jeong-ja Kim (86) / Group B
You do not become this or that. Group A is not made but born.
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- Are you filming this one?
- Hey, I am flattered.
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Yeon-hee Kim (57)/Group AA
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Yeon-hee is a living legend.
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She is famous for her long breath underwater.
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This is Yeon-hee working with another Group A haenyeo.
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She comes up for air once while the other surfaces twice.
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Woon-ja Kim (54) / Group A
Haenyeos with longer breath are usually slower.
They take a closer look around.
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She is never in a hurry. Yet, she rakes in a netful of conch, which some divers find hard to catch even one.
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Her colleagues call her ’an ocean excavator.’
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Haenyeos of Udo understand.
Their breath is determined by heaven and granted by ocean.
So they accept the ranks.
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Yim-hwa-Cha (84) / Group B
We are all same on the way in, but different on the way out.
That is the old saying.
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Oh gosh. This is killing me.
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The breath determines the ranks and greatly affects harvests.
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After a hard day’s work, these lower-rung haenyeos become edgy when they weigh
the day’s work.
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Group A
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Group B
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Team Dregs
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Be careful, it is tilting to that side.
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It is too much. You catch too much.
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Yeon-hee, the excavator, emerged again with a large catch.
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Whatever the weight/ their daily catch, everyone knows they risked their life for it.
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Why do they have to hold their breath for life?
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Jeju Island is a volcanic island.
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The land is barren and its water, acid. Crops do not grow and when they do, typhoons wipe
them out.
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We did have dry-fields but typhoons often swept away 2/3 of the crops.
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Yim-hwa-Cha (84) / Group B
So we had to survive eating seaweeds during the period of poverty.
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Gi-wook Kang (82)
We had nothing else to do.
We could live only hand to mouth with farming.
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So we have been depending on the sea.
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Archive footage
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They could not live or raise children / with what grew on land
So they jumped into the sea.
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The breath they stretched became food for their family, liquor for their husbands,
and books for their children.
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But why are there only women who do this harsh work?
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Jeong-ja Kim (86)
We didn’t have a rubber suit in older days.
Men could not stand cold water while women could.
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Men cannot do better than women in cold water, they say.
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Yim-wha Cha (84)
They even didn’t have fishing boats at the time.
And men had nothing much to do.
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So women went to the sea while men were taking care of kids.
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The sea is dangerous.
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Fishing boats go past where haenyeos work.
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And below the surface, even more dangers lurk.
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A woman can get tied up by floating sea grass
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Or an octopus may try to suffocate her.
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In the old days, octopus would stick to your face and suffocate you.
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However, there is something even more dangerous.
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Something that is invisible.
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Gye-wol Ko (85) / Group A
It is what all haenyeos beware,
death by mulsum (or breathing underwater).
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Every haenyeo knows how far she can stretch her breath.
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So they know exactly when to come up for air.
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You were tempted then you see an abalone,
even though you need to surface for air.
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Soon-ok Lee (53) / Group A
Abalone is too good to miss even though you are out of breath.
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Because you know you can’t find it in your next dive. It is too good…
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Even the best haenyeos cannot find it back.
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With nothing to mark, you want to get as you see it.
So you get a second thought.
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An abalone, the object of temptation, is worth about 60 or 70 US dollars.
But it’s very tenacious and exceptionally difficult to harvest.
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She is back looking for the abalone she spotted earlier.
But even this 70-year veteran cannot find it.
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The more you are impatient, the faster your air runs out.
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Mulsum
Once you are out of your own sum,
what is left is mulsum or breathing underwater.
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This is undisciplined desire.
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The sea gives you a desire.
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Jeong-ja Kim (86)
In the beginning, you try to empty your mind.
But you get to have a desire in the water.
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Those things in the sea make you succumb to greed.
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Jeong-ja Kim (86)
This sea also took my daughter. She was 18…
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Her friends said she harvested much algae that day.
But she did not come up even after all her friends did.
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I looked this way and that way, wondering where she’ll come up
The wind was blowing harder and harder.
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Her float and hoe swept ashore in another village later.
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Jeong-ja Kim (86)
I had no other options. There were mouths to feed.
It was not easy.
00:21:25 --> 00:21:38
But I was afraid that if I stayed away,
I’d never be able to go back in
so I did not wait long (after the accident).
00:21:38 --> 00:21:44
The first time, I came out empty-handed.
00:22:07 --> 00:22:14
Being a haenyeo means accepting the fact that
your workplace can become your graveyard.
00:22:35 --> 00:22:44
Of course it reminds me of the accident.
But there is nothing to be done.
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Sometimes it can be comforting.
The sea takes away all thoughts, even if for a little while.
00:23:07 --> 00:23:10
That is the power of the sea.
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Spring is the busiest season of the year.
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It is the season of agar-agar harvest.
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It is a time when even oldest and the weakest haenyeo enter the water.
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The island is filled with excitement and some tension.
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Hey, we should enter at the same time!
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The women anxiously wait for the signal to enter the water.
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The algae, agar-agar, grows 4 or 5 meters deep in water.
It is the greatest source of income for all haenyeos and the competition is fierce.
00:25:23 --> 00:25:31
The sea is full of the algae. All you have to do is move a little faster and hold your breath
a little longer.
00:25:48 --> 00:25:53
Haste-and-greed kick in. and greed ia s sure recipe for mulsum.
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The highest number of death among Jeju Haenyeo coours in this season of Agar-agar
harvesting.
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The harvest continues until early summer.
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They would stay in the water all night long if they could.
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Each carries her trophy of the long day.
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Agar-agar is a gelatin source and is also used in cosmetic products. It is mostly exported
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Nimble hands can earn as much as 13,000 US dollars, and slower ones 7,000 in a single
season. For the haenyeo, it is the crown jewel of the sea.
00:27:39 --> 00:27:42
Now the land is covered with the agar-agar.
00:27:45 --> 00:27:50
How one dries them is very important,
for its cash value will depend upon it.
00:27:56 --> 00:28:01
Day by day, a haenyeo is paid according to
the amount of the breath she holds back.
00:28:07 --> 00:28:10
Be rich-->!
00:28:31 --> 00:28:34
Soon-ok Lee (53) / Group A
00:28:31 --> 00:28:40
Everyone in Soon-ok’s house works at the sea. Her husband is the captain of a fishing boat,
and her son works on a commuter ferry.
00:28:46 --> 00:28:49
This is her first and last meal of the day.
00:28:53 --> 00:28:57
That night, news came from a neighboring village.
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An elderly haenyeo died in the sea.
She was drawn in by the scent of agar-agar.
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I stopped her.
Then she asked me to buy an ice cream for her.
00:29:31 --> 00:29:51
She said she would not go in
but was already gone in her rubber suit when I am back.
00:30:01 --> 00:30:10
After another death like this, they would rather not go to work.
They are all ready for diving but are not entering the water just yet.
00:30:12 --> 00:30:16
They found her standing upside down in the water.
00:30:16 --> 00:30:22
Maybe she couldn’t make it
because of all the weights around her waist.
00:30:39 --> 00:30:41
Now she has to go back to the sea.
00:30:59 --> 00:31:02
It is a difficult job.
00:31:09 --> 00:31:20
When I feel better, I work better and I see better.
When I feel bad, I can’t find goods.
00:31:20 --> 00:31:23
Sometimes my heart becomes heavy and I cry.
00:31:27 --> 00:31:34
Then I spring for the surface and have to wipe the tears.
00:31:38 --> 00:31:47
For haenyeos, living is diving into the bottomless depth
and fighting the fierce waves, and enduring the fear and loneliness.
00:32:07 --> 00:32:10
Summer comes with fog in Jeju.
00:32:20 --> 00:32:24
Jeong-ja Kim (86) / Group B
00:32:20 --> 00:32:34
The summer sea is the coldest for haenyeos. The average temperature is 19 degrees Celsius,
much lower than our body temperature. They are exposed to the danger of hypothermia.
00:32:39 -->00:32:42
Summer is the breeding season of fish.
00:32:48 --> 00:32:53
When the algae season is over, the sea floor becomes a wasteland
00:32:57 --> 00:33:00
This is when haenyoes catch fish.
00:33:03 --> 00:33:08
They are allowed to use only a primitive tool, a spear with a rubber band handle.
00:33:12 --> 00:33:15
Soon-ok Lee (53) / Group A
00:33:12 --> 00:33:16
Soon-ok is one of the best shooters .
00:33:32 --> 00:33:34
The summer sea is the most erratic.
00:33:48 --> 00:33:54
Hey, let’s get out.
Sisters, let’s go, hurry up!
00:34:13 --> 00:34:15
That night, a typhoon came.
00:34:24 --> 00:34:30
“A 69 years old haenyeo was found dead
in the waters at 11.30 AM today.
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A sailor found the body and reported to the police.
00:34:35 --> 00:34:39
I feel uneasy.
The memory of a typhoon haunts me.
00:34:39 --> 00:34:47
I got caught up in a typhoon almost to death.
I swam ashore without my float.
00:34:47 --> 00:34:54
The high waves terrify me ever since.
I sweat and all…
00:35:26 --> 00:35:35
The summer on Jeju will come to an end, only after all the typhoons pass.
Autumn comes to Jeju with southern whales.
00:35:44 --> 00:35:48
Chang-seon Koh (82)
00:35:44 --> 00:35:48
Granma Chang-seon became a haenyeo following her mother’s footsteps.
00:35:50 --> 00:35:53
Deok-hee Kang (53)
00:35:50 --> 00:35:54
Her youngest daughter Deok-hee also became a haenyeo at the age of fourteen.
00:36:01 --> 00:36:05
The sea also awaits an autumn harvest.
00:36:10 --> 00:36:13
Deok-hee works in the same waters as her mother.
00:36:18 --> 00:36:23
Chang-seon has been working in this water for 70 years since she was 7.
00:36:32 --> 00:36:41
Her husband passed away when she was 31.
As she was raising her 4 children alone, the sea became her husband and her god.
00:36:49 --> 00:36:59
“No one had it like me.
Raising four children…
00:36:59 --> 00:37:02
my life was never mine.”
00:37:08 --> 00:37:14
She stayed single for the sake of her children and she held her breath under water to raise
them.
00:37:37 --> 00:37:39
Deok-hee’s water is close to her mother’s.
00:37:42 --> 00:37:47
She has two daughters herself but doesn’t want them to follow in her footsteps.
00:37:53 --> 00:37:59
Deok-hee Kang (53)
I have no choice but to do this
since I am living by the sea.
00:37:59 --> 00:38:09
when I dive in cold winter water
or when I am tired and distressed,
00:38:09 --> 00:38:12
I often ask myself “why am I doing this?”
00:38:12 --> 00:38:18
But thinking that I make money and support my children,
I found myself being grateful for this job.
00:38:38 --> 00:38:42
Grandma Chang-seon’s children hope their mother would stop diving.
00:38:47 --> 00:38:55
Last year, she almost died in the water before being rescued.
But she does not and would not stop.
00:39:04 --> 00:39:15
Jeju Haenyeo are fiercely independent.
They refuse to be dependent as long as they have energy left to a spoon.
And there is one more reason.
00:39:17 --> 00:39:23
“I want to go in. It is so near.
00:39:23 --> 00:39:30
When I see others working, when I hear sumbisori,
it makes my heart flutter.
00:39:30 --> 00:39:36
When it is quiet, I miss it. I can’t get enough of it.
00:40:03 --> 00:40:04
Winter came to Jeju.
00:40:13 --> 00:40:16
The Cosmos Club members are having a meeting.
00:40:18 --> 00:48:21
They are the youngest haenyeo on Jeju Island.
00:48:26 --> 00:48:31
When they meet, they end up talking almost entirely about the sea.
00:40:32 --> 00:40:37
I saw a shark bite and shake her.
00:40:37 --> 00:40:43
I heard someone shout “shark!”
when I came up from a dive.
00:40:43 --> 00:43:51
I looked up and saw a shark with its teeth
already sunk into her body.
00:43:51 --> 00:40:57
It was terrifying. I never imagined it happening,
a shark attacking a human.
00:40:57 --> 00:41:01
She had huge eyes. She was swinging her arms.
00:41:01 --> 00:41:06
It was the first time I saw sharks attacking humans.
00:41:06 --> 00:41:09
No one has seen it. You’re the only one.
00:41:09 --> 00:41:12
Can we change the subject?
It is not very appetizing.
00:41:12 --> 00:41:18
This haenyeo business is no good.
00:41:18 --> 00:41:22
Everything has its upside.
00:41:22 --> 00:41:26
Well, I never felt it.
00:41:26 --> 00:41:31
Maybe it’s because I started late but I regret having started at all.
00:41:31 --> 00:41:35
We all started it because we had no choice.
00:41:50 --> 00:41:55
These women will probably be the last generation of Jeju Haenyeo.
00:42:09 --> 00:42:11
Soon-ok Lee (53) / Group A
00:42:09 --> 00:42:11
In winter, one waits longer for the tides.
00:42:15 --> 00:42:18
Jeong-ja Kim (86)/Group B
00:42:23 --> 00:42:27
Gosh, look at those waves. Look at it slaps
00:42:28 --> 00:42:32
The wind is softer than yesterday but the waves are larger.
00:42:35 --> 00:42:37
Further away looks okay.
00:42:40 --> 00:42:44
It is a no for us. Group A can go in, I think.
00:42:54 --> 00:43:00
While the younger women talk,
the oldest working haenyeo among them is ready to enter the water.
00:43:03 --> 00:43:07
- I am just too old now.
- But you’re still beautiful.
00:43:07 --> 00:43:11
Sook-jik Hyun (88) / the eldest haenyeo
I have become 88 this year.
00:43:16 --> 00:43:18
She is the first to leave for the winter sea.
00:43:22 --> 00:43:30
Snow flakes are in the air.
But her steps are as light as a child going on an excursion.
00:43:34 --> 00:43:37
What’s happening here?
The waves look fierce.
00:43:39 --> 00:43:46
Winter sea is dreadful even for young haeyeos. But this old hand doesn’t bat an eye.
00:44:18 --> 00:44:25
What pulls them? What gives them such strength to respond to the call of a wild winter sea?
00:44:31 --> 00:41:38
Yeon-ja Kim (70)
The sea is my food, my home and it is my life.
00:41:39 -->
Yim-hwa Cha (84)
A real bank won’t give away money.
But the sea does. It is a good bank for us.
00:44:45 -->00:44:53
Gye-wol Koh (85)
I will stop thinking about the sea only after I die.
Until then, I miss it every second.
00:44:53 --> 00:45:04
San-yeo Kang (85)
Why I love the sea?
From 10 to this age of 85, I never disliked it.
00:45:04 --> 00:45:07
I just love it.
00:45:31 --> 00:45:40
Yeongdeung-gut is an annual shaman ritual held in the second lunar month.
Women divers pay respect to the goddess of sea.
00:45:56 --> 00:46:05
Haenyeos are getting ready to receive their goddess.
They pray with all their hearts, for the safety at sea and a bountiful year.
00:46:07 --> 00:46:10
The Goddess says you will be safe at sea and will have a bountiful year.
00:46:26 --> 00:46:35
The goddess stays for fifteen days in the waters of Jeju
to plant marine goods in the water, before returning to her own country.
00:46:42 --> 00:46:47
April 2012
00:46:44 --> 00:46:47
It is spring again in Jeju.
00:46:53 --> 00:47:00
On one of these spring days, Grandma Chang-seon got ready for the sea as always with her
daughter on her side.
00:47:48 --> 00:47:54
But on this day, she did not come up. She let the water have her breath.
00:48:04 --> 00:48:08
Chang-seon Koh
00:48:10 --> 00:48:15
It was her daughter Deok-hee, who retrieved the body from sea.
00:48:33 --> 00:48:37
She is buried on a hillside overlooking the sea.
00:48:44 --> 00:49:08
Every year 4 or 5 haenyeo die while working in the sea. The women I talked to are unanimous
in saying that is how THEY would also like to die.
00:49:09 --> 00:49:17
It is not that the ocean takes our lives.
We have entrusted it with our lives they say.
00:48:18 --> 00:49:20
This is what the ocean is for haenyeos.
00:49:21 --> 00:49:31
On land, she was no more than a frail old woman.
but when she was going to the sea, she was always excited.
00:49:56 --> 00:49:59
It’s another day. They are going back to the sea.
00:50:05 --> 00:50:07
Deok-hee is among them.
00:50:12 --> 00:50:22
By now her mother’s spirit will have become part of the sea.
So for the daughter, the water is now also her mother.
00:50:31 --> 00:50:40
On my native island Jeju, there are women who report to the sea for work.
They are called haenyeo, the women of the sea.
00:51:00 --> 51:13
They lose their colleagues and loved ones in the sea, and with them they may also lose the
strength to go on living. But the sea also brings them solace.
00:51:16 --> 00:51:23
That is the power of the water they so love,
and haenyeos are those who live by such power.
