Moon Tides: Jeju Island Grannies of the Sea

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OON

OON IDES Jeju Island Grannies of the Sea

I

magine strolling along the windy shores of Jeju Island, off the southwest coast of Korea. Suddenly, you hear whistling

echoing from the sea. Turning to the water, you spot weathered faces bobbing to the surface, and you realize that the sound is the exhaled breath of sea women, known as haenyeo. With a sigh of gratitude, the aging divers have returned to the surface to replenish their aching lungs.

IDES

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

perhaps the last of their generation. As their maternal ancestors did for centuries, they have scoured the island’s sea floor, harvesting seaweed, octopuses, sea urchins, turban shells, and abalone. Their numbers have dwindled from 15,000 in the 1970s to approximately 5,600 in

I

magine visiting Jeju Island, where Korean grandmothers free-dive to harvest seaweed and shellfish. Even at age 70, many plunge 50 feet and hold their breath underwater for two minutes. Wouldn’t you like to talk with these daring women? Photojournalist Brenda Paik Sunoo, who lived for a while in her grandmother’s homeland to research this book, invited the locals to share their honest, intimate stories. Moon Tides amplifies their voices with Brenda’s engaging, award-winning photographs, plus woodcuts and poetry. You’ll discover details about the women’s work, relationships, traditions, community, and spiritual lives. Moon Tides is a beautiful, compelling book; I loved it. – PAOLA GIANTURCO (Author of Celebrating Women and Women Who Light the Dark)

recent decades. Driven by economics, these freedivers continue to labor well into their eighties—

BRENDA PAIK SUNOO

BRENDA PAIK SUNOO is a third-generation Korean-American writer and photojournalist based in Orange County, California. She spent seven months living on Jeju Island in order to conduct interviews and photograph the lives of these aging women divers. Other books by Ms. Sunoo are Vietnam Moment and Seaweed and Shamans: Inheriting the Gifts of Grief.

Jeju Island’s haenyeo are a dying breed—

the hardier ones often plunging 65 feet while holding their breath for two minutes or longer. Brenda Paik Sunoo gathered these women’s stories while living in their diving villages for a total of seven months between 2007 and 2009. Moon Tides—Jeju Island Grannies of the Sea is the first book by an American journalist to document the lives of these rare divers through intimate interviews and photographs. Their

* Photos from Moon Tides won the 2010 Community Choice Awards for an exhibit entitled “Picturing Power & Potential,” sponsored by the San Francisco Arts Commission and International Museum of Women. (www.imow.org)

stories will appeal to those of us desiring a life of purpose—undulating and infinite as the sea.

ABOUT THE INTERPRETER/TRANSLATOR YOUNGSOOK HAN received her Ph.D degree in English literature at Dongguk University and is currently a professor in Dept. of English education at Jeju National University.

US$ 65.00 42,000 won

BRENDA PAIK SUNOO Part of the proceeds from sales of Moon Tides will benefit retired haenyeo on Jeju Island.

with

YOUNGSOOK HAN

COVER DESIGN Jung Hyun-young


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