There's a group of badass women in recent popular culture who have gained attention called the "Sea Women," a group of Korean female divers who dive down to the ocean floor near the island of Jeju in Korea to fish for abalone. The story is captured pretty extensively in the book "The Island of Sea Women" by Lisa See, but also in other short Youtube video clips I've seen. "Female mermaid divers," the story kind of writes iself.
However, the life of a sea woman, or "haenyeo," was tough; it's tough diving down into ocean waters to look for shellfish. I consider myself a pretty adept swimmer, yet my ears start popping and nose starts feeling sore once I get towards the bottom of the pool; it's not a comfortable feeling. Don't even mention salt water, with waves constantly changing direction and salt water getting into your eyes. There's also the danger of drownging, not by inability to swim, but by having your fishing tools get caught up in the abalone, and being stuck down there and not being able to escape to the surface for air. Not exactly as glorious a life as it seems (it sure seems exotic, living in and around the ocean all of one's life).
And finally, of course there are the natural threats to a haenyeo's life: global warming. MJ's very worried about global warming in the future, but it's already come and taken away most of the haenyeos' livelihood, as there are less and less abolone to catch, and oceans changing due to climate change. Oh and pollution. Another reason MJ and I likely won't go on a cruise ship anytime soon: cruise ships just dump all of their garbage directly into the ocean, polluting it even more than it already is, but also just showing a totally lack of compassion for the oceans and the earth, it's like they're not even trying and getting away with it. And given what I see from the average American people in regards to leaving food on their plate, that's a lot of waste on top of waste that's being dumped into the ocean.
Speaking of waste, that's something I just can't sympathize with some people about: not finishing their meal to the best of their ability and just letting it go to waste. I see this very often at restaurants like the one MJ and I went to for her birthday brunch today. I feel like restaurants do a decent job at serving the right amount of portions for most people's courses, and if anything if they overserve in portions you can always get a doggy bag or box to carry the food home with you, but nope, many restaurant patrons are just outright leaving the food there. Now I get some people are picky eaters and they just didn't like the food, but leaving an entire plate of food sitting there after taking a tiny nibble is just unacceptable to me. Even if I hate the food and how it tastes (very rarely but the few times it does), I understand the nutrion value at least and scarf it down anyway, packed with the knowledget that if I don't eat it, no one else is going to, and that animal, or plant, or whatever food, died for no reason. Also, I seethe at the thought that I'm paying extra for my food because the restaurant has to evenly distribute the cost of making more food because some bozo ordered more food than he or she could finish or wanted to eat, and restaurants have to keep raising their prices to keep up with all the send-it-backs and wasted food (I've NEVER sent anything back, by the way). MJ and I disagree on a lot of things, but eating up all our food is a solid 100% agreement, we always finish our food. I've never met someone who cleans up her plate as much as MJ does, sometimes I feel shame when I leave just a few grains of rice behind or few leaves of a salad left (or a small "ear" piece of orecchiette pasta, I learned about this today) and so it's a healthy competition between us to completely finish. She even eats the "pizza bones" (aka the crust) that I've been 50/50 about in my life whether or not to eat. Finish your meal, people!
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