Sylvia's Journal

Sita gave me wonderful book for Christmas (“The island of sea women“). I have not been able to put it down. It has opened a whole new world for me as I am learning about the history, culture and practices of the women free divers from Jeju Island in South Korea. I had not realized that this place and its women divers has been made into a UNESCO World heritage site. It is a historical novel and so, aside from being a captivating story, I’m also learning quite a bit about Korea between 1937 and the mid 50s. I thought I was familiar with what is referred to as the Korean conflict, but now I realize how little I knew about what happened there in that period.

The closest I came to the conflicted history of Korea was through my uncle, who fractured his elbow during the troop transport. Because of that, he never actually made it there. His lower and upper arm were forever fixed perpendicular to each other, keeping him home.

I am reading about the atrocities that took place on Jeju Island, which are quite similar to atrocities that took place in Cambodia, in Nazi Germany, in Rwanda, in Afghanistan, in Syria, in Iraq, in Uganda and countless other places I may not even have heard about. These events raise so many questions in my mind about how cruel people can be, in particular older men with power directing young men with deadly weapons and a need for belonging and a purpose.

When I visited some of the memorial sites in Cambodia I learned about babies being smashed against trees. On Jeju Island something similar happened. In all these conflicts the lives of ordinary people were upended: they were chased from their homes, their livelihoods destroyed, and their villages burned. And all this created only more chaos more conflict more anger more suffering. Why, I keep wondering? What did people hope to accomplish with their violence? And did they accomplish whatever it was that they or their superiors were aiming at?

I have lived in places where people believe that God has a hand in all of this, and so they search for what they did wrong. Rabbi Harold Kushner wrote a beautiful book about this (“When bad things happen to good people”). In my youth in the fifties I was introduced to this vengeful God of the Old Testament. He was (of course) an older white male, reflecting the attitudes of that time and place. Now I know better, but I can still easily imagine this god, high on his throne in the heavens, looking down upon us stupid earthlings, who spent so little time alive on our beautiful planet, and instead of enjoying every moment, manage to make a mess of it, as if creating the most hurt, pain and suffering is our purpose in life.