济州‘美人鱼’的深呼吸：女性潜水传统如何应对时代挑战
Off the southern coast of South Korea, on the volcanic island of Jeju, a community of women has defied the ocean’s depths for centuries. Known as haenyeo—literally “sea women”—they free-dive without breathing apparatus to harvest abalone, conch, and seaweed from the frigid waters. Most are now in their sixties or even eighties, yet they still plunge daily to depths of up to 20 metres, emerging with a distinctive, pained whistle called sumbisori as they expel carbon dioxide. Declared a UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage in 2016, the haenyeo represent not merely a curious relic but a profound symbiosis of gender, labour, and ecology that is increasingly at odds with a hyper-modern, convenience-driven world.
The physical and psychological demands of the practice border on the preternatural. A haenyeo may hold her breath for two minutes or more, guided by a mental map of the seabed and an acute sensitivity to her body’s oxygen thresholds—a skill honed from childhood in a matrilineal apprenticeship that once defined entire villages. Their work is rigorously collective: divers adhere to a strict ranking system based on experience, and harvest limits are informally enforced to prevent overexploitation. This communal discipline, sustained across generations, stands in stark contrast to the rapacious logic of industrial trawling, replacing the brute force of machinery with an almost meditative endurance that transforms the ocean into a shared, fragile trust.
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