Documentary Empathy 'Wild Life is Alive - Gapado's Spring' ▶ Gapado Haenyeo Special Forces The first diving of the spring for the Gapado Haenyeo begins in the still cold wind. With a population of less than 200, there are 44 Haenyeo in Gapado - almost all of the women who can go into the water are diving. Haenyeo are divided into upper, middle, and lower groups according to their diving skills. The work of the 12 upper groups who go out to the open sea by boat to dive is reminiscent of special forces training. The Haenyeo are armed with earplugs made of clay and have spears stuck on their backs, and they dive into the rough waves without hesitation. In the water, giant abalones that have been sleeping all winter, red ginseng in season, and conches tempt them with their mysterious appearances. However, the rough currents that rush in as if they will swallow them up quickly make the female divers' bodies weak, and the cold water melting from Mt. Halla freezes their entire bodies... We follow the work site of the female divers, who always have to hold their breath until they come out of the water and hear the long exhalation sound. ▶ The legend of the 'big fish' that still lives Gapado, located in the path of the Kuroshio Current, has strong currents and reefs everywhere, making it the best place for fish to spawn. This is the time when fish about to spawn come to the island when barley blooms! While the women dive, the husbands are busy catching fish. They make a living by setting up a net to catch them and catching them with a line. Every morning, fisherman Chunho goes out to sea and catches a 1-meter-long bushi on his hook. In his youth, the sea off Gapado was full of giant modori, which feed on yellowtail. Now that Modori has disappeared, the legend of big fish still continues in the sea off Gapado. Fishermen occupying a spot on each rock face fight with flatfish over 1m long, and lose track of time while enjoying the thrill of rare wild catches such as black bream, black croaker, and black bream. ▶What do the haenyeo grandmothers carry in their strollers? The haenyeo who are too weak to go out to the open sea to dive go to the rocks near the land to dig for seaweed and dry the first seaweed of spring, chogakdo. The strollers lined up on the beach are the personal cars of the haenyeo grandmothers of Gapado. Unlike the city elders who spend their days alone, the haenyeo of Gapado spend their spring days busy with diving. The haenyeo grandmother Wangcho, who was famous even in Japan when she was young, has dim eyes and her joints ache from arthritis, but in the water, she is as nimble as the young haenyeo. The son and his wife, who left the city life and moved to the island 10 years ago and run a Chinese restaurant, serve Jjamppong with plenty of wild seaweed and conches that their mother catches every day to tourists. The daughter-in-law, who was born as the daughter of a haenyeo and lost her mother to the sea, still cries because she misses her mother-in-law who still dives, but the grandmother is fortunate that she can still be a source of strength for her children. #Gapado #haenyeospecialforces #fishing