For American Kylie Genter, a day at the beach is no longer a day off for sunbathing and swimming. Instead, it is a place where she prays for her safety before diving into the waters to gather abalone and shellfish for living. What others see as a holiday destination has become, to her, a workplace and a landscape of possibilities. Since she began diving as a "haenyo" with fellow women divers in January 2024, the work has changed how she sees the sea. Finding her place Genter arrived in Korea as an English teacher in 2012. She moved to Jeju in 2016. While working as a tour guide, she received many questions about haenyeo and that prompted her to enroll in a diving school in 2018. She eventually took up the work after learning that Youngrak village was recruiting younger divers. “When I first started, they didn’t really know my name,” she said during a recent interview with The Korea Times. The veterans would call her “Hey” or “American kid.” Within that circle, Genter found her role as an extra pair of strong hands. Struggling at first to understand the local dialect, she deci