What I read, and where you can see the real thing.
Sources and places
Where this was learned
Every word and number in this game came from the list below. None of it is my own reporting. I am not a haenyeo, I do not live on Jeju, and I have not had any of this checked by a diver.
The pictures and the music were made with AI.
The two divers, the underwater backgrounds and the boat songs were generated with AI tools and edited by hand. The facts were not — every term, size, season and number came from the list on this page. You should be able to tell which part is which, so it is written here.
What I read
- Korea Heritage Service — the culture of Jeju haenyeo; the sanggun, junggun and hagun tiers
- UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage — Culture of Jeju Haenyeo, inscribed 2016
- Jeju Sori — what tewak, mangsari, bitchang, nun and bulteok mean
- Halla Ilbo — the count of working haenyeo in Jeju City, as of end of August 2025
- National Archives of Korea — records of diving work
- Jeju Ilbo, 16 Feb 2016 — the jaksal, the spear used to shoot fish
- Jemin Ilbo — Halmang Badang on Gapado: small turbans under 8cm seeded into water 4–5m deep
- Jeju Province marine and fisheries statistics, and the FAO GIAHS application for the Jeju Haenyeo Fisheries System — the catch figures on what the sea gives
- Korea Hydrographic and Oceanographic Agency — "What is a tide?", for spring and neap tides
Where you can see the real thing
Run by Jeju Province. A diver's day, her tools, and the 1932 haenyeo uprising against Japanese rule, in physical objects. One visit is worth a hundred rounds of this game.
These actually train new divers. One is run by Jeju City, the other by Seogwipo City, and both take a new intake each year.
How someone becomes a haenyeo
I was curious, so I looked it up. It goes like this.
- Complete a haenyeo school.
- Join a fishing village cooperative as an intern and dive as an apprentice.
- Become a member of the fisheries cooperative.
- After one to three years of diving, be accepted by unanimous vote at the village assembly.
Unanimous, at the village assembly. That one line tells you what kind of community this is.
Things people corrected
- "oxygen tank" → the word is air tank, and haenyeo do not wear one either. They go down on one breath.
- "over a minute" → usually they work about thirty seconds and come up. I had written an exception as if it were ordinary.
- "with no equipment at all" → they use goggles, a tewak, a mangsari and a bitchang. What they do not use is an air tank.
Fixed because people told me. If you see another one: [email protected], or Threads @soombi.sori.