Summary

The beginning of “Life Bubbles” shows the collective’s habits when the women are not in the water. On land, they complain about men, seeming even “competitive about whose husband was the worst” (61). At the end of each day, the collective divides the day’s catches joyfully, happy to have survived the rough waters without any haenyeo getting hurt. At these times, women also nurse their babies.

One day Mi-ja and Do-saeng do not come to dive, so Young-sook dives with Sun-sil. Young-sook successfully catches her first abalone, something she has been aspiring to do, and she proudly brings it to the surface. When she looks for Sun-sil, Young-sook realizes her mother is still underwater on the rock where she had left her. Young-sook finds her mother and sees that her leather bitchang had gotten trapped beneath...