The island of Jeju, 53 miles south of mainland Korea, lies at the watery crossroads of the Yellow and East China Seas. Diving for conch, octopus, urchin, and abalone had always taken place there but due to large taxes was never very profitable – something men would take up if there was no alternative. That was until a canny group of women in the 18th century realized that women did not, unlike their men folk, have to pay taxes. A loophole was about to become a living.
What was a subsistence income became a lucrative revenue, once the gender of the divers was swapped and no tax had to be paid. From then on it was the women who scoured the ocean and its floor – and it was the women who became the main breadwinners of the household. Once the burgeoning women only activity had taken hold of the island’s economy, with tens of thousands of female divers creating an industry then a matriarchy blossomed.
The haenyo do not use oxygen tanks, which would only weigh them down and make their difficult task even harder. Their black wet suits and goggles are all they need to descend to the sea floor to collect their bounty. The skills they possess serve them well now – and did so too under the Japanese occupation of the Second World War. Many haenyo became heroines of the Korean resistance movement.
(Source: http://www.kuriositas.com)
