Anaïs’s Reviews > The Island of Sea Women > Status Update

“300 villages had been burned or razed…On the mainland, Koreans were told not to believe stories about the massacre…it was as if Jeju had once again turned into an island of exiles, all of us wandering souls.”

“We all suffered from memories.”

“Was the Four-Three Incident Report America’s first Vietnam? Or was it a fight for people who craved unification of north and south and wanted to have a say in what happened in our country, without interference in influence from a foreign power.”

“ on land, you will be a mother. In the sea, you can be a grieving widow. Your tears will be added to the oceans of salty tears that washing great waves across our planet. This I know. If you try to live, you can live well.”

“ I would live because I could not die.”

Jeju’s history shows how Japan’s colonization and the U.S. and Soviet Union’s division of Korea turned ordinary civilians into targets of state violence.

“Our hunger and desperation—and all the death and destruction around us—drove us to do the very thing that created life, that said there would be a future, that reminded us of our own humanity.”

“we were told the Americans with bringing democracy & quash communism but most of us didn’t know the difference between the two.”

“…the seas gifts were like a mother‘s love, unending, but parts of the sea are turning white, where coral, algae, seaweed, & sea currents have perished…the haenyeo will dive for a harvest of Styrofoam, cigarette filters, candy, wrappers & bits of plastic.”

“They say that in another 20 years, the haenyeo will be extinct.”

“The sea has been the center of her life. It has nurtured her and stolen from her, but it has never left.”

“ You are learning about tides, currents, & surges, & the influence of the moon on the sea, & on your body. It’s most important that you always be mindful where you are in that moment when your lungs begin to crave breath.”

“She assisted me when I washed my mother’s body & then wrapped her in cloth. This act is a daughter’s greatest honor & her greatest desolation.”