Fashion photographer Peter Ash Lee can’t recall the first time he heard of Jeju Island’s haenyeo divers. Born in South Korea, his family moved to Toronto when he was seven, where he grew up watching TV shows and hearing stories about this community of women—some in their sixties and seventies—who freedive in the waters off South Korea’s largest island in search of food to sustain their families.
"If you’ve been to Jeju Island, you’ve seen them around because they’re just working,” Lee says. “They’re all around the island.”
So a few years ago, in between work assignments (Lee’s editorial projects have been featured numerous times in Vogue’s pages), he headed to Jeju Island and spent three days with the haenyeo documenting their lives on land. The result of his time there is the new book The Last Mermaid, which officially launched on January 15, offering a riveting portrait of an extraordinary group of women with a deep knowledge of the ocean and marine life. Together, the haenyeo defy gender norms, push the limits of the human body, and keep alive a 1,000-year-old tradition despite the challenges of modern life and climate change.
What started as a personal project as a way for Lee to reconnect with his South Korean roots evolved into a fascinating tome, featuring a documentary-style visual narrative that gives readers a glimpse into the livelihood of these female divers and their arduous line of work. But The Last Mermaid is also an appeal to protect this “unique life, wisdom, and traditions [that] should not fade into oblivion but serve as a guiding light for future generations,” as Lee writes in the prologue.
The haenyeo, who are part of South Korea’s UNESCO cultural heritage protection status, have been practicing muljil (the Korean word that refers to their diving activities) since at least the sixth century AD, according to records. Muljil requires an intimate knowledge of the ocean and its physics, as well as superior physical fitness. Divers would often stay underwater for up to three minutes without the help of any modern-day diving equipment—a feat that tests their lung capacity and ability to feel and withstand water pressure, as well as estimate ocean depths.
“They are still cutting their own [wet]suits and repairing them by hand, and they are still using lead weights that are quite poisonous, actually,” Lee explains. Once, he suggested to them using snorkels, which would make it easier to see underwater. “They said that it would be cheating,” Lee recounts.
The haenyeo’s main catches are seaweed and a type of mollusk called turban conch, which they collect in a tewak, huge fishnet bags attached to an orange float. Their days start at dawn as they gather, have their blood pressure taken, and change into wetsuits. Then, it’s off for 10 to 12 hours of diving in temperatures that can drop to 50 Fahrenheit. As the sun sets, divers return touting hundred-pound bags full of the day’s catch on their backs.
“The ocean is almost more their natural habitat than land,” Lee adds.
Lee asked one of the youngest divers, Ko Ryou Jin, a third-generation haenyeo who inspired the book’s title, to write an essay for the book, in which she describes, among other things, the healing effect diving has had on her life. She writes: “People often ask me if it’s not too hard. In response, I say that I am happiest when I am diving. I explain that when I hold my breath and look underwater, I find the meaning of my existence, that gazing at the horizon opens up my once-constricted heart, and that when I overcome the waves, my own heart also becomes stronger.”
When Lee started editing the book, he envisioned having two images per page that complemented each other. But, as he explains, that layout changed the narrative and made it less about documenting the lives of the haenyeo and more about “visuals and a play of shapes and images.” So he went back to the drawing board and left a single photo on each two-page spread.
“So when you open [the book], you’re just focused on what’s happening on this one picture rather than trying to relate it to something else on the other side,” Lee adds.
Another notable feature is the lack of captions, as Lee didn’t want to spotlight individual divers but rather the community as a whole. The absence of lengthy descriptions also leaves readers focused on the images, he explained.
And while The Last Mermaid chronicles the haenyeo’s lives with beauty and sensitivity, it is also a stark reminder of the perils of climate change and its impact on the livelihood of communities across the globe. Because rising water temperatures are changing marine habitats, causing the population of sea urchins to explode, the divers now have to swim much further out and risk encounters with poisonous snakes and octopi that have migrated from the much warmer waters of Southeast Asia.
“You see these vulnerable communities who are probably doing the least amount of polluting, and they’re so mindful about the environment, taking care of nature, and their practices are all sustainable, but yet, they’re the ones suffering the consequences of our actions and being impacted,” Lee says. “It’s quite tragic.”
Modern life has also presented the Haenyeo with another challenge. Because of how physically demanding their lifestyle is, the practice is on the verge of disappearing, with very few new divers willing to learn muljil. It’s a fact that renders Lee’s work and The Last Mermaid even more important.
“My hope is to make sure that these different cultures and practices aren’t forgotten,” Lee concludes. “These experiences and these ways of life make the world so unique, beautiful, and interesting.”
The Last Mermaid is now available here.
