B&W Photo Contest - Travel - Incredible Jeju Women Divers

This is my entry into this week's #bwphotocontest hosted by @daveks and I am thrilled that the theme is TRAVEL as that has been my entire life of the past year. The guest host is @sweetssj whom I know shares my passion for travel and getting to know and understand new places, people and cultures.

Do you know the story of the women divers from the famous Jeju Island in South Korea? These women are the living embodiment of Wonder Woman, but they're not characters in a comic book fantasy, these women are real! For centuries the women of Jeju have been the sole providers for their families by FREE DIVING for shell fish. There was a longstanding belief in Jeju that the men were "too important" to work so the women had to earn the money to support the family, as well as be responsible for the household duties. And as if that's not hard enough, and in case you aren't aware, free diving means that you aren't using added equipment such as an oxygen tank or other breathing devices to go deep into the water and retrieve their catch. These women start diving quite young and train and continue to dive into their 70s and even 80s! They may look small, but don't be fooled, they are amazingly strong and beautiful. They were so generous with their time with the tourists and even gave us a short performance singing folk songs and smiling for our cameras.

I took the photo with my Canon Powershot S95.

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