Food Mondays: Monica Eng Interviews Chinese-American Novelist Lisa See

By Monica Eng
Lee Myung-ja, a South Korean haenyeo, walks from the water after catching turban shells and abalones while diving in Jeju, south of Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Nov. 23, 2007. Lee, 63, is among a dwindling number of Korean women carrying on a centuries-old tradition. Known as haenyeo, which literally translates as “sea women,” they hold their breath up to two minutes as they pry abalone or gather seaweed from the ocean floor.
Lee Myung-ja, a South Korean haenyeo, walks from the water after catching turban shells and abalones while diving in Jeju, south of Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Nov. 23, 2007. Lee, 63, is among a dwindling number of Korean women carrying on a centuries-old tradition. Known as haenyeo, which literally translates as "sea women," they hold their breath up to two minutes as they pry abalone or gather seaweed from the ocean floor. Lee Jin-Man / AP Photo
Lee Myung-ja, a South Korean haenyeo, walks from the water after catching turban shells and abalones while diving in Jeju, south of Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Nov. 23, 2007. Lee, 63, is among a dwindling number of Korean women carrying on a centuries-old tradition. Known as haenyeo, which literally translates as “sea women,” they hold their breath up to two minutes as they pry abalone or gather seaweed from the ocean floor.
Lee Myung-ja, a South Korean haenyeo, walks from the water after catching turban shells and abalones while diving in Jeju, south of Seoul, South Korea, Friday, Nov. 23, 2007. Lee, 63, is among a dwindling number of Korean women carrying on a centuries-old tradition. Known as haenyeo, which literally translates as "sea women," they hold their breath up to two minutes as they pry abalone or gather seaweed from the ocean floor. Lee Jin-Man / AP Photo

Food Mondays: Monica Eng Interviews Chinese-American Novelist Lisa See

By Monica Eng
WBEZ brings you fact-based news and information. Sign up for our newsletters to stay up to date on the stories that matter.

WBEZ’s Monica Eng talks to Chinese-American novelist Lisa See, author of bestsellers Shanghai Girls and On Gold Mountain. See’s latest novel, The Island of Sea Women, immerses readers in the lives of a dwindling community on the Korean island of Jeju in which generations of women have supported their families by diving for seafood. Eng and See discuss the dangers of the work, Russian and Japanese influence on the island and the unusual foodways of this disappearing community of female divers.