The Island of Sea Women by Lisa See

Members thought our last book for 2021 was a good one. Most of us gave it 9/10.

We were intrigued by the story which is set on the volcanic island of Jeju, an island off South Korea.

Jeju is only a little bigger than Fraser Island in Queensland. A semi- matriarchal society has existed there for centuries and the breadwinners are traditionally the female farmers and free-divers, the Haenyeo. These divers gather a diverse range of sea creatures and seaweed in the seas off the Jeju coastline, to feed their own families and to sell at the market. The fascinating culture of this society and the roles of men and women in it is explored as the story unfolds.

The twists and turns of the narrative with its shocking events and family secrets kept us enthralled. It is not a story for the faint-hearted. The life histories of the two friends and divers, Kim Young-sook and Han Mi-ja, are told against a backdrop of Korean history, from Japanese annexation of the country in 1910, the development of a local protest movement on Jeju in the 1930s, through World War II and the instigation of new foreign management in the form of the United States (South Korea) and the USSR and China (North Korea, above the 38th parallel).

At the heart of the book is the Jeju uprising against the American administration, and in particular the 4.3 Incident in 1948. This was a bloody confrontation between Jeju residents and authorities where police fired on demonstrators who were commemorating the anniversary of a protest against Japanese colonisation.

Ultimately, the Jeju uprising and other events led to the Korean War (1950-1953). However, you don’t need to have knowledge of any of these developments to enjoy the story which shows how the wider political environment can drastically affect the lives of ordinary people.

The story opens with Kim Young-sook in the present day. Although a very old woman, Young-sook is still able to harvest algae on the beach with the other old Haenyeo. She is approached by a family: Jim and Ji-young (Janet) with their children, Clara and Scott. Janet asks her if she remembers her grandmother, Han Mi-ja.

Young-sook denies it, even after Janet shows her a photo of her grandmother’s wedding with a girl in the photo who Janet says she has been told is Young-sook. Young-sook won’t speak to them and makes sure they don’t find out where she lives on the island. Nevertheless, Clara does find her again and pursues her enquiries about her great grandmother’s life on Jeju.

The book begins to alternate between the world of the Haenyeo from the 1930s onwards, and the present day. Young-sook tells the story of how she learns to be a diver from the age of 15, practicing holding her breath until she can stay underwater for over three minutes, and eventually diving down to depths of 30 metres to search the sea floor for food.

The marine harvest is gathered by the divers in an assigned territory of coast governed by the chief of their collective, Young-sook's own mother. Young- sook reveals that at this time Mi-ja is a ‘baby diver’ of the same age. Mi-ja is being brought up by her aunt and uncle after her parents have died. Her father had been a collaborator with the Japanese.

Young-sook had first met Mi-ja a few years earlier when Young-sook’s mother catches Mi-ja stealing from their vegetable farm. Young-sook’s mother tells the girl that the local Hado villagers are ashamed of Mi-ja’s parents for moving to Jeju city and working with the Japanese. But she also recognises that Mi-ja is not being cared for by her aunt and uncle and is hungry and unkempt.

She insists that the girl replant the sweet potatoes she has stolen. Young-sook shows her how and the girl starts to work every day on the farm for food. In the process she and Young-sook become firm friends. They making a rubbing in the field using a lump of coal and a piece of precious paper pulled from a notebook formerly owned by Mi-ja’s dead father. This is the first of many such rubbings they will make together over the years as a way to preserve their memories.

Young-sook and Mi-ja become experienced divers and travel overseas together to dive in places as far away as Vladivostok to earn income to send home to their families. They are busy with their lives but hear accounts of Japan’s attacks on China and across the Pacific, which pull America into the Second World War.

After five years working away, the girls return to Jeju in 1944 with thoughts of marriage and having children on their minds. They find the island is full of Japanese soldiers.

The two girls come from very different backgrounds and after their marriages are arranged they are separated by their own circumstances and the impact of the new management of the island by the United States, after the war ends.

The short times the two friends are able to spend together over the next few years only highlights the contrast between their lives.

Ultimately, it is the terrible 4.3 Incident which drives a permanent wedge between the two women. Members at our monthly meeting engaged in a lengthy discussion about what we expect of best friends, what is discussed and what is not, and what it is possible to forgive and what, not. The two women go on to inhabit completely different worlds in the years that follow. Nevertheless, Mi-ja’s descendants eventually seek to heal the rift, travelling to Jeju from the United States to track down Young-sook.

Members thought the book was well written, realistic and engrossing, filled with earthy details of daily life and the culture of the Haenyeo and the poignant issues besetting that culture over the years and today. It also had many of us seeking to educate ourselves further about Korean political and military history.

Who is Lisa See?

Lisa See was born in Paris in 1955 but today lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children. She is an American writer, biographer and novelist. Her paternal great-grandfather was Chinese which has had a large impact on her life and work. She has written for and led in many cultural events emphasising the importance of Los Angeles and Chinatown.

Her first book was On Gold Mountain: The One-Hundred-Year Odyssey of My Chinese-American Family (1995), a detailed account of See’s family history.

Other novels about Chinese women’s experiences include: Flower Net (1997), The Interior (1999), Dragon Bones (2003), Snow Flower and the Secret Fan (2005), Peony in Love (2007), Shanghai Girls (2009) and the sequel Dreams of Joy (2011), China Dolls (2014), and The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane (2017). She wrote The Island of Sea Women in 2019.

Both Shanghai Girls and Snow Flower and the Secret Fan received honourable mentions in the Asian/Pacific American Awards for Literature.