 . . . Summer 1998
Women Divers Now: imagine yourself 30 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, so deep in the murky water that the noon sun is just a dull gleam like a flashlight. Powerful waves undiminished by any breakwater roll above you, and cause strong surges beneath the surface that yank you forward and backwards with each sweep. Now imagine that you're hunting for abalone and other ever-scarcer shellfish. You have descended willingly, but now that you're down there, you've got to find something to bring back before you will permit yourself to breathe again. OK, you can breathe again now.
THE AMA OF SHIRAHAMA Their reasons for diving are little changed. Divers search for seaweed, various shellfish, lobster, sea urchins, octopus and, in certain waters, pearls, which occasionally were a nice bonus inside the oysters the ama caught for food.
The main modifications in diving equipment have occurred in the last 100 years with the use of masks, then, perhaps 40 years ago (depending on location), fins. With the introduction of fins, divers gained the swimming power to support more drag in the water, so they could also withstand the additional weight of clothing to provide warmth. Also, for a brief time in the late 19th century, the ama in the Shirahama area dived with compressed-air helmets. The practice was soon outlawed once it was realized that it would lead to quick depletion of local oceanic resources. Some residents of Shirahama and nearby towns then moved to California, where helmet diving was not forbidden, and set up a thriving abalone diving business. The Oscar-nominated actor Sessue Hayakawa (for Bridge on the River Kwai), born in the Shirahama area, originally immigrated to America to become a diver before finding success in Hollywood.
In fact, that is what I went to Japan to study-women divers. (There are men divers, too, though they aren't as numerous or as well known as the ama, and in some areas of the country, only women dive.) I set out to examine the differences between men and women divers, any tensions that might exist between them, and the different ways they are regarded in the popular imagination.
MEET THE DIVERS Ama say that a love of the sea is necessary for all divers, otherwise the difficult, frequently frightening work is too unpleasant to endure. Every day I dived with them, I was awed at their courage and spirit, as women as much as 40 years older than I would gamely slog through nauseating waves, between great rocks, in conditions that my old dive instructors in Northern California might quail at the prospect of swimming in.
One friend of mine, age 73, suffered a heart attack, and her doctor told her to stop diving. But after six months' recuperation, she was back in the water. All of the younger divers were glad to see her because, as one said, "She's the best diver. Every year, I watch her and learn something from her." Another woman, 62, suffered a mini-stroke while diving. Despite weakness on one side of her body and a sudden dimming of her vision, she swam to shore. When the next year's diving season rolled around, she was back in the water.
The worst day of diving, bar none, is the first day of the season, May 1. The water is at its coldest, perhaps 57 degrees Fahrenheit, and murky. The sun is obscured by clouds, and there are strong spring winds making it feel colder and whipping up the ocean waves. Out of practice, the divers can retrieve only pathetically small amounts of shellfish for all their efforts. On such a day in 1997, I was able to see most clearly what keeps them diving under these conditions. After diving, we all returned to the dive hut on the beach, the amagoya, where cadres of three to eight divers eat, rest, rinse off (in unheated fresh water) and change clothing. Everyone was wearing the supremely disgruntled expression of a cat who has been forced to take a bath.
As we sat in silence, shivering and dripping, nauseous amidst the smell of seaweed gone bad, unable to truly dry off because it had started to rain, two divers slunk off together into an obscure corner, whispering conspiratorily. Moments later, they both jumped out, wearing outlandishly silly clothing that they'd bought in preparation for this day. All the other divers burst out laughing in surprise. The oppressive mood was broken, and everyone started moving around and chattering happily. Then, one of the culprits leaned over to me, and said, "You see, Bethany-chan, if we laugh we can forget how damn cold it is!"
A SPACE OF THEIR OWN The ama meet at the amagoya each morning during the diving season. The hut is soon surrounded by a flurry of activity, with the ama mending gear, soliciting the latest gossip and laughing at bawdy jokes. Next, they begin eating, loading up on calories to support them for the day's work. Because of the harsh ocean conditions, divers can stay in the water for only a few hours at a time before becoming too cold, too sick or too tired to continue. Then, they make their way back to the rocky beach (almost always as a group), sell their catch, eat lunch, rest and talk with their friends as they spend the rest of the day gradually warming themselves up from their minor hypothermia.
Because diving requires great skill, non-divers have no authority to critique the ama in their own sphere, unlike in the home. One ama told me that when she was first married, "After diving, we would always stay at the amagoya instead of going home, because after diving, you need to rest and warm up, or else you'll get sick. But if we went home, we would be made to work or to feel lazy for not working. But in the amagoya, we could do what we liked." Yet there is a great deal of competition between divers, a result of which is that divers do not instruct or advise other divers on their work, either. Consequently, ama are relatively autonomous in their actions.
Another plus for diving is that it is less laborious than farming because even though it is more intense work, it demands much less time. So even divers who also farm are able to spend less time farming than those who do not dive at all. Some divers have spoken to me of the freedom that diving gives them in other contexts as well. One diver with a young daughter to support told me that she was glad of her ability to dive because "it gave me the financial freedom to divorce my husband." Others have told me that when young, their ability to earn a living from diving allowed them to avoid becoming maids in Tokyo to help support their families.
Financially, diving was at one time quite lucrative, though profits have been decreasing for the past 20 years due to depletion of oceanic resources as well as the collapse of the Japanese economy. Divers are fairly secretive about their earnings, but they used to earn more than many salaried workers. Most ama have noticeably attractive, expensive houses, paid for from their diving profits. Currently, while good divers who dive all day from boats can earn perhaps $500 a day in the 80 days or so that make up a diving season, the majority who dive from shore for only a few hours a day may earn only $100 to $200 a day.
The result of all of these aspects of being an ama is that ama are sometimes said to be different from other women-more aggressive, more earthy-though many ama would disagree with this. Ama frequently yell or speak in loud voices, are leaders in the community's women's groups and converse in bold, direct ways that are not commonly used by women in Japan-sort of the equivalent of saying "Yo!" instead of "Hello."
Ama say that these speech patterns are true of all fishing people in Japan, because you need to yell and speak directly when working near the loud ocean. Of course, the damage ama do to their ears because of the changes in water pressure may contribute to their loud voices as well. Diving also causes ama to be muscular from the physical exertions and chubby as protection against the cold. Being in the open water for long periods of time causes them to get deep facial tans, too. All of these characteristics conflict with more idealized Japanese notions of feminine beauty and behavior, those of Japanese women as quiet, slender, shy, pale and self-effacing. It also conflicts with the geisha stereotypes of Japanese women held by many Westerners and encouraged in various films and novels.
WHY WOMEN DIVE INSTEAD OF MEN Some say that divers were bred over generations to their skills, and so what they do would be impossible for other women to do. In fact, however, diving is not a job that is passed down from mother to daughter, but rather is adopted by choice. Others say that the ama are actually very masculine, implying that their skills at diving could not be associated with women, but rather are men's skills that they happen to have.
Still other explanations are: that in prehistoric times men were hunters while women gathered shellfish on the beach and gradually started diving as an outgrowth of their beachcombing; that men left to fight in some war of long ago, and women took over their jobs; that women dive because men fish in deep-sea fishing boats, allowing women to stay relatively near home in the presumably easier job of coastal diving. None of these "historical" explanations is supported by any evidence.
The explanation with the strongest empirical support is that women dive instead of men because women can deal with cold stress better. Various biological anthropologists have performed numerous studies on divers and found that women are able to conserve heat better in the severe cold stresses faced in the ocean.
DIVERS AS BATHING BEAUTIES? The image of the ama in both Japan and the West misrepresents their actual lives. Such dissonance might be merely amusing to some or offensive to others were it not for the fact that many who view the divers in this way have the economic power to affect how these women live.
THE AMA AS TOURIST ATTRACTIONS Over time, the practice of hiring ama to mimic their prior jobs as independent divers while simultaneously serving as clandestine sex objects became more elaborate. To entertain tourists, ama or other women in villages where ama live have begun to be hired as so-called "ama-geisha" in bars and hotels. Ama have expressed to me their distaste at this work and their relief when their diving skills enable them to earn enough at real diving to avoid doing it. Yet this process of downplaying the unfeminine aspects of diving and highlighting the "feminine" aspects continues, so now bars are hiring women who have never dived to act as ama-geisha while wearing the sexy, invented ama clothing, as described by anthropologist D.P. Martinez.
This contrast between what divers really are and their commercialized image shows up vividly during Shirahama's annual Ama Festival. During the festivities, women divers dress up in the semi-transparent white outfits that people think ama really dive in, but which are no longer used in Shirahama. Then, at night, to the strains of "The Ride of the Valkyries," the divers wade out into the ocean and swim around, carrying burning torches that glint off the glass of their masks and make their white outfits glow. It is an eerie, impressive display, yet completely unrelated to what the divers do for a living, and many ama find it silly. LOOKING TO THE HORIZON Alongside this fantasy model, ama still exist as women divers. But probably not for long. The money they can make has been dropping precipitously as the overfished and polluted ocean yields fewer and fewer shellfish; a faltering Japanese economy lowers prices for the delicacies the ama procure; and cheap imported abalone cuts into sales of local strains.
And then there is El Nino, which has ravaged the Pacific for the past two diving seasons. In 1997, divers could work only half as many days as usual, diminishing already shrinking profits. Divers tell me that now diving is yielding only extra spending money, so that they have to devote more time to farming for a steady income. But the divers greet these changes with the same unflappability with which they face diving into churning waves during a thunderstorm. They are all survivors, hard working and determined, and will confront whatever lies ahead with courage and strength.
Bethany Leigh Grenald is a doctoral candidate in anthropology. She provided all illustrations except the You Only Live Twice publicity photo.
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GOVERNED BY THE LIMITS OF THEIR ENDURANCE---THEIR COURAGE KNOWS NO DEPTHS
Unfortunately, the only place you're going to find any abalone these days is in deep crevices between rocks, and so to the claustrophobia of being underwater is added the claustrophobia of being sandwiched between rocks in a space scarcely wider than you are--and you're upside down. If you're lucky enough to find your target, a $40-a-pound abalone, then it's time to get the tools out and start wrestling. Abalone resemble suction cups about five inches in diameter, and while their top part is protected by a thick mother-of-pearl shell, they are grabbing onto rocks with their underside with enough strength that you can't pry them off with your bare hands, hence the necessity of a tool that looks like a combination spatula-crowbar-knife. You have to slip it between the abalone and the rock, and then use it like a lever to pry the abalone loose. Still, the abalone might be too strong, and it's likely that a life-and-death struggle will ensue. 
The abalone is literally fighting for its life, and you feel like you are, having gotten so caught up in the struggle that you feel that you must remain struggling until you've secured your prey, or else you've made your 60-foot, 80-second roundtrip for nothing, because if you ease up for a moment, the abalone will slither deeper between the rocks out of your reach.
So by and large, only low-tech methods of diving have been used in Shirahama. The divers, proud of their strength and skills, have legislated that it is the limits of endurance of each individual, unassisted with any but the most rudimentary of equipment, that determine how long each person stays in the water, how successful each diver becomes. Accordingly, most areas of the town forbid divers to wear full wetsuits, permitting only very small, thin, torso-covering wetsuits. Thus now, as in the past, ama rely only on their own heart, lungs and willpower. And then, as now, women divers garnered the most attention.
Even though they don't conform to common notions of femininity, the ama have nevertheless become erotic symbols in Japan and, occasionally, in the West. In Ian Fleming's You Only Live Twice (later made into a movie), James Bond marries, impregnates then leaves an ama/ Hollywood starlet/superspy who has revived him from a mid-life crisis via a masterful display of laughably stereotypical Asian-woman subservience, sensuality and exoticism. In the 1986 Japanese movie Tampopo, a nubile young ama sensuously wades out of the ocean and has a raw oyster eaten out of the palm of her hand by a man.
The most famous ama erotica are the woodblock prints from Japan, primarily from 200 to 300 years ago. The ama's popularity with artists in this medium was partly due to the fact that nudity in woodblock prints was technically forbidden by the shogunate government. Since ama dived topless, this stricture could be circumvented through appealing to realism in art. Until quite recently, however, many female agricultural workers also went topless upon occasion, yet they were not depicted in erotic art as were the ama. Possibly the choice of the ama as subject reflects the symbolic association of women, water and sex throughout Japanese history.
In contrast, on land, the city hall has organized an "Ama Queen Contest," a thinly veiled beauty contest for which participants dress in the invented ama outfits and high heels, and answer questions like "How old are you?" and "Do you want to marry someone in this town?" When asked to imitate ama behavior for the contest, many strike the phony poses that professional models assume on tourist posters or sculptors use in souvenir statues of ama. What the posters and statues have in common is that the ama is never working but always posing coquettishly.