![]() Hana and her mother only interact with Japanese soldiers when they go to market to sell their day’s catch. He navigates the South Sea with the other village men, evading imperial fishing boats that loot Korea’s coastal waters for produce to repatriate back to Japan. They live in a tiny village on Jeju Island’s southern coast and dive in a cove hidden from the main road that leads into town. Hana and her mother are haenyeo, women of the sea, and they work for themselves. She is a second-class citizen with second-class rights in her own country, but that does not diminish her Korean pride. Japan annexed Korea in 1910, and Hana speaks fluent Japanese, is educated in Japanese history and culture, and is prohibited from speaking, reading, or writing in her native Korean. ![]() Hana is sixteen and knows nothing but a life lived under occupation. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |