The View from Jeju – The Drift

It is said that in Korea there is a strange-looking, fantastical creature called a bulgasari, which can dissolve iron and swallow it whole.
— Kim Sokpom, 1972

Fifty miles off the coast of the Korean Peninsula, in the sea passage that connects Korea to Japan, sits a small island of nearly 700,000 people that began to form when an underwater volcano erupted more than a million years ago. Home to the storied female shellfish divers known as haenyeo, as well as three UNESCO World Heritage sites, Jeju is nowadays described as the “Hawaii of the East,” attracting 50 percent more tourists and honeymooners than all of the Hawaiian Islands combined. Legend has it that, long before Jeju was populated by ordinary men, it was inhabited by three demigods: Ko, Yang, and Bu. Above water, gods still greet visitors to Jeju today: gracing the racks of tourist shops are totems of…