Her mother’s hand, secured at the nape of her neck, reassured her until she recovered. Hana gulped in air between racking coughs.
With one hand, her mother lifted Hana’s face above the water. She swallowed more water as her head dipped beneath the surface. A sudden swell rolled over her, submerging her in an instant. Sputtering with her chin barely above the waves, she was disoriented and began to panic. When she finally broke the surface, she breathed in more water than oxygen. In her excitement, Hana lost her breath sooner than expected and had to race upward for air. Learning to swim began the moment she could lift her head on her own, though she was nearly eleven the first time her mother took her into the deeper waters and showed her how to cut an abalone from a rock on the seafloor. Hana followed her mother into the sea at an early age. They can hold their breath longer, swim deeper, and keep their body temperature warmer, so for centuries, Jeju women have enjoyed a rare independence. Their bodies suit the cold depths of the ocean better than men’s. On Hana’s island, diving is women’s work. The villagers are tired of the heavy taxes, the forced donations to the war effort, and the taking of men to fight on the front lines and children to work in factories in Japan.
The occupation is a taboo topic, especially at market only the brave dare to broach it, and even then only in whispers and behind cupped hands. It creates a sense of freedom not many on the other side of the island, or even on mainland Korea, a hundred miles to the north, enjoy. Hana and her mother only interact with Japanese soldiers when they go to market to sell their day’s catch. He navigates the South Sea with the other village men, evading imperial fishing boats that loot Korea’s coastal waters for produce to repatriate back to Japan. They live in a tiny village on Jeju Island’s southern coast and dive in a cove hidden from the main road that leads into town. Hana and her mother are haenyeo, women of the sea, and they work for themselves. She is a second-class citizen with second-class rights in her own country, but that does not diminish her Korean pride. Japan annexed Korea in 1910, and Hana speaks fluent Japanese, is educated in Japanese history and culture, and is prohibited from speaking, reading, or writing in her native Korean. Hana is sixteen and knows nothing but a life lived under occupation.
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