Ieodo

Ieodo

Ieodo is a underwater rock in the East China Sea which has been a disputed “territory” between China and South Korea. It is within the median line of Korea, so Korea constructed an ocean research tower in 2003 and has been operating. Half of Cheju fishermen who were fishing in the Ieodo sea did not return due to swiftly changing weather and storms. Cheju women, sea-diving women, sang a song, “Ieodo Sana, Ieodo Sana,” (Do you live in Ieodo? Do you live in Ieodo?) in the sea from their heart for centuries. Their sorrow was in their song.

By Yearn Hong Choi

The peaceful sea will never show Ieodo;

only the stormy sea will show Ieodo.

10-meter waves will expose top 5-meters of Ieodo,

a rock hidden under the waters.

Ieodo is located on the way to the distant sea

from Kapado and Marado.

Half of those who passed by Ieodo

did not return to the mother island;

only half returned to the port.

Those who could not return

drifted away to the South China Sea and Indian Ocean.

The seafarers could not communicate with tropical island people

and disappeared into the equator with the sunset.

With the sunrise

in the following morning,

they rose onto the water,

disappeared into the blue sky,

and then appeared as shining stars in the night sky.

The blue sea has the same amount of territory,

as much as the blue sky.

Ieodo was the gate to the distant sea.

Half knew it and

half did not know it.

That was the message

the classic sea was telling us.

The peaceful sea did not tell us anything,

but the stormy sea was reading to us the memorandum

of those who could not return.

No one wants to leave their hometown,

but the stormy sea forced Cheju seamen to lose their ship,

home town, and home port.

Ieodo is somewhere

in the lost sea.