Jeju nature, culture and economy

We had a wonderful start to the day walking to a waterfall close to our hotel alongside great parties of schoolkids, all ready to pose in front of the view. And yet it was magical – verdant, almost sub-tropical, peaceful:

Even the regulation ‘grandfathers’ had acquired a beautiful patina:

The wildlife included mandarin ducks:

and tik-tok girls:

We walked on down to a bridge which we can see from our room (yet another one with a sea view) – this was taken this evening:

Much of the southern part of Jeju is filled with citrus plantations and we’ve had some delicious tangerines and – until now – unidentified citrus, so we went to the Citrus Museum to learn more. We learnt rather a lot more than we were expecting!

Do you want to know all this? Perhaps a couple of facts will do – it was the Japanese who developed the citrus cultivation on Jeju during their occupation of Korea during the twentieth century.

We were able to identify the citrus delivered in our breakfast basket to our room this morning as a Hallabong (though knowing that it’s a hybrid of Chunggyun orange and Ponkan doesn’t really help):

Citrus export is a major contributor to the Jeju economy with citrus exported all over the world including the UK.

And then we went in search of the other famous Jeju phenomenon: Jeju was known as a matriarchal society with women divers fishing for their families and farming the stony volcanic land. The haenyeo are free divers who harvest abalone, conch, octopus, sea urchins and seaweed from the ocean floor. They dive up to 20 metres deep and hold their breath for up to two minutes a dive, working six or seven hours a day.

We knew about the haenyeo from one of the Korean dramas we had watched on Netflix (Our Blues in case you want to follow this up – we really enjoyed it!) and wanted to find out more. The Haenyeo Museum seemed the best place.

The women dive together and, until the 1980s, wore cotton garments. They started using rubber suits and masks but they don’t use oxygen and they continue to use traditional tools. They started very young (around eight years old) and continued until they were elderly. But sadly, most haenyeo now are in their 70s and 80s as their daughters, unsurprisingly, don’t want to follow in their footsteps.

We found these photos in the museum so moving:

We thought we would leave Jeju with an unforgettable image of ourselves taken at the Citrus Museum with borrowed accessories – Sue insists I include it here!