‘There is no mercy!’: the young women swapping South Korea’s work culture for freediving

The remarkable haenyeo on Geoje Island believed their traditions were dying out. But then came the new recruits – refugees from the cities’ exhausting rat race

Shin Ho-jin had been freediving only a little over a year – gathering oysters, seashells and other marine life by hand – when she spotted the cluster of abalone. Eager to show the older, more experienced divers that she could keep up, the 37-year-old took a deep breath and was about to plunge toward her prize find when she heard a shout: “Ho-jin, don’t go there!”

It was the 69-year-old Lee Bok-soon, Shin’s boss and the captain of the boat. The experienced freediver of more than 50 years, often called Omma (Korean for mother) by her recruits, had seen that Shin was about to swim right into an old fishing net.