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Letter from Jeju
Life after 50: Why two women moved to Jeju and dived into a vanishing trade
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Madam Choi Soon-duk with her 93-year-old haenyeo mentor. The Jeju haenyeo community is known for its tight-knit and matrilineal structure.
PHOTO: COURTESY OF CHOI SOON-DUK
JEJU – In the opening scene of the 2025 Netflix hit series When Life Gives You Tangerines, main character Ae-soon stands before the open sea and calls out for her mother in a plaintive voice.
From the waves, her mother, a “haenyeo” – a “sea woman”, one who freedives to harvest seafood – surfaces and releases a sharp, piercing whistle before slipping beneath the water once more.
