“That’s one version,” the shaman continued. “Another says Grandmother Seolmundae, like all women, was exhausted by all she did for others, especially for her children. Her five hundred sons were always hungry. She was making them a cauldron of porridge when she became drowsy and fell into the pot. Her sons looked everywhere for her. The youngest

The past is the present. The present is the future.

“But I should have saved her . . .” Mi-ja had lost her mother and father, so she felt my pain in a way no one else could. She refused to leave my side.

Those of us who ran our own households learned we could gather more wealth without husbands to drink or gamble it away. We

“Not many men can do without a wife, while all women can do without a husband.”

Beyond all that, I’d loved Jun-bu. He wasn’t as replaceable as a broken diving tool. No, I could never become a wife or a little wife.

“When a woman gets married, she has the best food for three days. That must last her a lifetime.

Jeju’s matrifocal culture,

She considers the sea to be her bank.