JPG: Stories: Photo Essay: Jeju Island

Jeju Island

By Claudia Martin

12 Jun 2008

I have spent the past nine months working as an English teacher in South Korea. I came here after graduating college, and living and working with my boyfriend for a year. After being here for eight months, living single, often lonely, often bumping around lost and struggling to be a good teacher, role model, loving the freedoms of new-found single-life, I was ready for a break! What is all this struggle for? Where is freedom in a 8 to 4 job, trading one set of responsibilities for another? I threw them all away. How can I love myself if I was not doing what I loved?

It was May 2008 in Seoul. Cherry blossoms were in bloom, the tulips were sprouting up, and families from kids in school uniform to old men with their canes, were wandering the streets to celebrate the new life, sunshine and warm breezes. Wandering and wondering, as well as shooting everything with my camera, these are the things I live for, and of course love. I love to be in love, and to observe people in love. Though I am single, it was a little island south of Korea's mainland that caught my attention. Jeju, the island, of "wind, rock, and women".

My coteacher said I could travel to any place within Korea. If I left the country, it would be trouble with Visas and my contract, yadda yadda. So Japan was out of the question. The best thing was not to argue and to find the most peaceful and laid-back beachy land of Korea, while still feeling like I had made an escape to another country. I settled on Jeju, the Honeymoon Island. The land of "delicious" black pig, and grandfather statues, lava rock, wind, smart hard-working ladies, myths, and love.

Jeju: the island of women, haenyo. Haenyo are women divers. The younger generations of Korean women are less inclined to put on a wet suit and dive for abalone and seaweed, but this is a lifetime's work for many older women on Jeju Island. They are considered real-life mermaids, waking before daybreak to harvest the seabed for local Asian markets. Women in Jeju are known for working diligently, and as hard as the men. This contrasts sharply with the majority of younger Korean women in cosmoplitan areas like Seoul, who are rarely found without a compact in hand and stilletoes on foot.

Jeju: the island of rock. "Island of the gods", and considered home to some 18,000 gods and goddesses, all with a myth about the creation and development of the island. The entire island centers around Mt. Halla, a giant crater filled with a small lake. The island is covered in lava tube caves and volcanic rock. There are various waterfalls and beachsides with black and rust-colored rocks.

Jeju: the island of wind. Located in the path of typhoons, there are regular heavy gusts of winds. They made my $20 a night hostel room crackle with constant shutter flutters. The spring rain swept under my umbrella sideways and scoffed my attempts to remain dry. This made the sunny days all the more pleasant and rewarding. The heavy winds did contest my efforts at eternal outdoor hikes with camera, however, so that I found some strange indoor entertainments, such as Happy Town. Happy Town, for an example of random tourist entertainment which runs rampant around the small island, is a building out in the middle of nowhere but reachable by bus. Though a blase boxy, peach building on the outside, inside there were Chinese acrobatics, contortionists, motorcycle daredevils, hoolahoopers, and pizza spinners. With my caramel popcorn in tow, and squashed between two older Korean women with permed mullets, I felt almost like a kid with her dad at the Barnum and Bailey Circus again.

So there are many perks to traveling alone. Once or twice, I brooded that I was alone on a honeymoon island. But most of the time, coffee in one hand, camera in the other, and even on occasion, a coconut with a straw, I wandered quickly and freely for nine days. Waking in the morning to ask yourself, hmm, where to go today?! is an exhilirating feeling. And then accidentally happening upon a place called Seongsan, Sunrise Peak, a dormant volcano with a Buddhist Temple at its feet, that is a joy. And then wandering upon an Eros Museum, with paintings and sculptures of world love and sex art, on the kama sutra and hindu tantric sex. Well, that is fascinating. Then a day at the horse races, and a day shopping in Seogwipo, "he Florence of Jeju", and even some days gambling in a casino with money I shouldn't be spending...but I had saved enough visiting cheap attractions like the beautiful Yeomiji Botanical Gardens (this is where I sat and stared at Koi fish for about an hour and they truly are bizarre little creatures!), and the Dinosaur Park and Museum.

Now I admit it. The second to last day was May 11th, my birthday. Returning from the horse race track, and wandering on foot through streets I had no idea about, I wandered into a hotel casino. It was heavy wind out, and I could hardly stand. Though english was poor for everyone on the island, the casino manager managed to get me into a game of Roulette which I had never played, and take 50,000 won, about $50, in twenty minutes time. I mentioned it was my birthday, which produced a small cardboard cup of coca-cola, and then I wandered out $50 down and a little birthday blue.

But the day continued, as I picked up my pennies and carried on. I would be returning to teaching and the mainland, on the outskirts of Seoul the next day. That meant chaos, and traffic jams with people, metros and buses. That meant thirty minutes public transport to find the nearest western-style coffee shop. I decided to walk up the fishing docks at sunset. Families were out, a live concert was playing at an outdoor concert hall, and small kids were jumping rope and playing baseball with their friends. The sun set slowly, and I wished I had a thicker coat for the wind, but it was beautiful. The sky turned from light blue, to dark blue, to pink and blue, slightly purple, violet, and a deep orangey-red, like an old lady's lipstick smudge. It was peaceful, and surreal. Amidst the 18,000 gods and goddesses, the wind's salutations, and the children with their baseballs, I was not alone after all. Just being here, at peace, I may not have been one of the honeymooners in matching t-shirts, but I was doing what I loved (sitting, drinking coffee, shooting everybody and everything with my camera) and I was in love, with life, me, all the possibilities.