Photo by Lisa Xing

The mermaids of Korea’s Jeju Island are a sight to behold, but not in the way you might think. They don’t have long, flowing locks, nor figures reminiscent of magazine models. They don’t sing Disney ballads. The sound they do make is through whistling—their own method of inhaling oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide after they surface from the water. Most haenyeo, literally “sea women” in Korean, are grandmothers. They have weathered faces, deep wrinkles, and walk with slow, measured steps. Each morning at dawn, they plunge into the sea to catch clams and other marine life. They dive without much equipment, using only flippers, weighted vests and rubber diving masks. Their method is simple—mark their location in the water with a float, use a weeding hoe for digging up the sea life, and gather their harvest in a net. Some dive as deep as 20 metres, staying under for as long as three minutes without surfacing.

When my friend and I rented mopeds to explore this small island off of Korea’s southern coast, seeing the haenyeo dive was a top priority. After all, the practice helped place local traditions on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List in 2009. We had read about them in our Lonely Planet guides and heard about them through friends. Devastatingly, we both caught a bad case of food poisoning our second evening there, so waking up at the break of dawn was far from feasible. The majority of the trip was spent nursing ourselves back to health and easing stomach cramps, and we gave up hope of actually seeing the haenyeo ourselves.

On our last day on Jeju, we were determined to see more of the island, ill or not. Not up for anything strenuous, we went to spend the afternoon with a picnic near Sunrise Peak, a popular destination on the island’s east coast. Before we even had a chance to spread the picnic blanket, we spied a small figure in the distance walking toward us with what seemed like a net in one hand. Closer and closer she came—until we realized it was one of the haenyeo, standing before us with that day’s catch, still wearing her rubber diving mask. Without a word, she plopped herself down on the beach and motioned for my friend and me to do the same. Because she spoke no English, and our Korean was broken at best, our communication consisted mostly of hand gestures and chuckles. We sat with her for about 10 minutes as she showed us her catch of the day—squid and other sea life she’d scooped up by hand. She spent every morning in the sea—using practices of eras past, armed with just her two calloused hands and an unflinching strength that seems nearly mystical to modern-day generations.

According to the Korea Tourism Organization, there were about 30,000 haenyeo on Jeju Island in the 1950s. By 2002, the number had dropped to 5,600 divers, more than half of whom were at least 60 years old. When this group of women retire, it seems like the legacy of the haenyeo will also vanish into history books, nearly as mythical as mermaids themselves.

Delegates at the Unesco Youth Forum in Paris are articulating a completely new worldview. Photo by Siena Anstis.

Over the past four years I have had the great fortune of being able to live and travel in different places around the world. As I made it my job to spend time talking with youth from these different countries—primarily Uganda, Kenya, Canada, Denmark and Kosovo—I quickly discovered that we have one common and highly relevant role: together, we are rendering borders less relevant in the traditional sense.

Borders in the nationalistic, political, religious and economic dimensions of today’s world are artificially dictated by individuals who profit from these exacerbated differences. The 2008 post-election crisis in Kenya is a perfect example: both President Mwai Kibaki and Prime Minster Raila Odinga were powerful leaders exploiting ethnic differences as a means of uniting votes and remaining in power. Instead of focusing on the structural problems of poverty and land distribution, they pulled out a more tangible separation—that of ethnicity—and refused to let go.

But today’s youth bring a different perspective. Already a tangible reality in our lives, we are willing these borders into irrelevance.

As the UNESCO Constitution states: “Since wars begin in the minds of men, it is in the minds of men that the defenses must be constructed.” Youth around the world bring a new moral flexibility that promotes cooperation between previously sworn enemies.

For example, Behar Xharra, a young Kosovar, feels equally comfortable working with Serbian youths as with his own Albanian brethren and he helps ensure that a cross-border dialogue is maintained between peers, as a means of stabilizing the unsteady political climate that Kosovo was born into. Youth in the Obunga Slum in Kisumu, a town in Kenya’s Western Province, call for the celebration of cultural and ethnic diversity in their country, as well as the end of ethnic stereotypes that has divided their country.

While governments often exploit ethnic and religious differences, such as former President George Bush’s stereotyping of Islamic culture as an “axis of evil”, a strong and growing contingent of youth actively transcend these imposed borders. In Montreal, young Israelis stand hand in hand with Palestinians hoping for the liberation from incessant conflict; French Canadians mingle easily with Anglophones even while they continue to support the once-violent separatist movement.

The desire of youth to continue building this global nation—through the use of direct dialogue and increasingly useful social networking tools like Facebook and Twitter—is a powerful movement that will not be broken by rigid governments or an economic crisis. Indeed, many young people have decided to turn these obstacles into an opportunity to further solidify this global perspective despite great adversity. Through global alliances, “le capitalisme casino” is rendered inadequate and unsustainable. Instead of advocating another extreme ideology, such as Communism, youth are developing a method of sustaining humanity which relies on a global understanding. These strong alliances will sustain the pressures of differences and help ensure that people resort to violence less and less frequently.

The UNESCO Youth Forum is a great opportunity for this perspective to continue flourishing. In just one room, there are representatives of 109 countries. Such a meeting of minds, whether or not our leaders pay any attention to the recommendations of youth during the upcoming 35th UNESCO General Conference, will resonate across the world. The baggage of the Cold War, anti-Islamic hate, and extreme Zionism is slowly eroding and being replaced by new values of a generation that celebrates diversity, which brings new alternatives to the globe’s problems.

While I do not want to paint an overly idyllic picture, there is something brewing beneath the surface which offers youth a vision of a global world where differences are to be appreciated, not manipulated. In the long-run (for there is no “quick fix” to the world’s current management) humanity might learn from its mistakes.

[October 2, 2009, 12:42 pm: This article originally displayed the incorrect author; it’s now been corrected.]