Jeju Island Quotes

It happened in Gwangju just as it did on Jeju Island, in Kwantung and Nanking, in Bosnia, and all across the American continent when it was still known as the New World, with such uniform brutality it's as though it is imprinted in our genetic code.

Fall down eight times, stand up nine. For me, this saying is less about the dead paving the way for future generations than it is for the women of Jeju. We suffer and suffer and suffer, but we also keep getting up. We keep living. You would not be here if you weren't brave. Now you need to be braver still.

The government labels the haenyeo a cultural heritage treasure—something dying out that must be preserved, if only in memory. How does it feel to be the last of the last?” If they’re academics, they’ll want to talk about Jeju’s matrifocal culture, explaining, “It’s not a matriarchy. Rather, it’s a society focused on women.

A monument will never change how she feels. It's unfair that victims should have to forgive those who raped, tortured, and killed, or burned villages to the ground. On an Island of World Peace, shouldn't those who inflicted terrible harm on others be forced to confess and atone, and not make widows and mothers pay for stone monuments?

Every woman who enters the sea carries a coffin on her back,” she warned the gathering. “In this world, in the undersea world, we tow the burdens of a hard life. We are crossing between life and death every day.” These traditional words were often repeated on Jeju, but we all nodded somberly as though hearing them for the first time. “When we go to the sea, we share the work and the danger,” Mother added. “We harvest together, sort together, and sell together, because the sea itself is communal.

On Hana’s island, diving is women’s work. Their bodies suit the cold depths of the ocean better than men’s. They can hold their breath longer, swim deeper, and keep their body temperature warmer, so for centuries, Jeju women have enjoyed a rare independence.

wants to help,” Clara says in her childish Jeju dialect. Young-sook watches the strangers try to assist her grandson as he loads the bags of algae onto the flatbed. Once everything is secured, she climbs behind her grandson and wraps her arms around his waist. She nudges

On Jeju, we had a saying: If there is happiness at age three, it will last until you reach eighty. I belived this to be true. Mi-ja, on the other hand, often said, "I was born on a day with no sun and no moon. Did my parents know how hard my life would be?" We could not have been more different and yet we were very close.

On Jeju, we had a saying: If there is happiness at age three, it will last until you reach eighty. I believed this to be true. Mi-ja, on the other hand, often said, "I was born on a day with no sun and no moon. Did my parents know how hard my life would be?" We could not have been more different and yet we were very close.

It happened in Gwangju just as it did on Jeju Island, in Kwantung and Nanjing, in Bosnia, and all across the American continent when it was still known as the New World, with such a uniform brutality it’s as though it is imprinted in our genetic code.

Emi’s grief was buried beneath Jeju International Airport. At the time it was a military airfield, abandoned by the Japanese imperial air force when they left the island after the Second World War ended. More than seven hundred political dissidents were held there,

I went to Jeju Island to remember my mother. At her happiest. At her finest. Before everything fell apart. Because that is how I choose to remember my mother. To pay homage to the woman she had been, to the woman she could have been. To etch into my memory the one place she had experienced unadulterated joy.