As Jeju’s 'haenyeo' numbers sink, young recruits dive in to save tradition

JEJU CITY, Jeju — A seaside town hall on Jeju Island filled with the lilting chants of haenyeo, or woman divers, on May 2 as dozens of aspiring recruits gathered to begin training in one of Korea’s oldest and fastest disappearing professions.

The lyrics of a traditional haenyeo folk song — “ Ieodo sana aa, Ieodo sana aa” — echoed through the hall, greeting 45 newcomers ranging in age from their 20s to 50s at the induction ceremony for the Jeju Hansupul Haenyeo School.

“I got on a flight to Jeju yesterday just to enroll in this school,” said Lee Se-hyeong, an aspiring haenyeo from Suwon, Gyeonggi. “I’ve been drawn to Jeju and haenyeo culture for about two years, and I’m finally planning to settle here next month.”

Over the next four months, students will undergo intensive ocean training. The curriculum includes both theory and practice of muljil, the traditional method of free diving, along with swimming techniques, diving methods and seafood harvesting. Students will also receive CPR and safety instruction and learn haenyeo songs and community customs.

“I completed the introductory course at this school last year and found myself drawn to it, so I joined a nearby fishing village association,” said Kim Gyeong-hui, who moved from Seoul to Jeju three years ago. “Although I’m still a beginner, I hope to become a full-fledged haenyeo after completing the training.”

By entering haenyeo training, Kim joins a long centuries-long line of women on Jeju Island who have plunged into the sea to harvest seafood such as abalone, conches, octopuses, sea urchins, oysters and seaweed for a living.

Although the island’s diving tradition dates back to the 5th century, the word haenyeo — which literally means “sea women” in Korean — did not appear until the 17th century, when female divers began to outnumber their male counterparts.

One commonly cited explanation for the rise of haenyeo was the historically high mortality rates among Jeju's male fishermen, who usually ventured farther offshore to catch fish. Another is that women usually have more subcutaneous fat than men, enabling them to work longer in cold waters.

Although women divers are found in other seaside regions of Korea, haenyeo in Jeju have shaped the popular image of the island’s women as resilient and independent.

Haenyeo today are classified by skill level. The most experienced haenyeo work primarily at depths of more than 10 meters (32 feet), remaining in the water for three to seven hours during each session and diving as many as 300 to 400 times a day. Mid-level divers typically operate at depths of 5 to 10 meters, while beginners usually stay within 3 meters.  

What makes haenyeo so unusual is that divers free dive without oxygen tanks, typically holding their breath for one to three minutes and using a distinctive whistling breathing technique known as sumbisori when resurfacing.

Since opening in 2008, the Jeju Hansupul Haenyeo School has become one of the island’s main institutions for training new divers. The school grew out of a 2007 local revitalization initiative and has graduated 949 students to date, 70 of whom are now active haenyeo.

“We’ve now graduated more than 900 students,” said Kim Sung-geun, principal of the Jeju Hansupul Haenyeo School. “In the early years, most students were from Jeju, but now we are seeing applicants from other regions and even from overseas.”

Of the 67 applicants this year, 45 were admitted, according to the Jeju provincial government. Thirty-four are from Jeju, and 11 are from elsewhere in the country. Thirty-eight of the students are in their 30s and 40s. 

Nine students this year enrolled in the school’s professional track, which prepares graduates to become full-time haenyeo. The relative youth of this year’s cohort offers a rare bright spot for a profession facing steady decline.

Jeju had 2,371 active haenyeo last year, down from 2,623 a year earlier, according to Jeju government data. Divers aged 70 and older account for about 1,500, or 63 percent of the total, including 423 aged 80 or above. By contrast, only 105 are younger than 50.

The profession once counted more than 10,000 practitioners.

The number peaked at 14,143 in 1970, but economic changes, local demographic aging and a dwindling pool of recruits have steadily eroded their ranks. The number of haenyeo fell below 3,000 in 2023 and dropped to 2,371 last year, a decline of more than 1,000 over the past five years.

But as the number of haenyeo has declined, efforts to preserve their unique tradition against the tide of modernity have brought growing recognition at home and abroad.

The tradition was designated Korea’s first nationally important fisheries heritage in 2015 and added to Unesco’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity the following year.

In 2023, the Food and Agriculture Organization recognized haenyeo aquaculture as a “globally important agricultural heritage system.” A national association representing some 10,000 haenyeo across the country was also launched in 2024.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.

BY CHOI CHOONG-IL,MICHAEL LEE,LEE SOO-JUNG [lee.soojung1@joongang.co.kr]