UPDATE: Video replaced with more recent video of Misaki Omukai (including an interview)
Iwate Prefecture, Kuji City
Japanese online bulletin boards are alive after a Japanese Ama Diver (the women and very rarely men who dive for abalone (called “awabi” in Japanese) with virtually no equipment. It is one of the old traditional occupations in Japan. The tradition of women free-diving in the sea is said to have started over 2,000 years ago. Tourists can watch them work and eat seafood like sea urchin or oysters right out of the sea there and in other nearby parts of Japan.
My personal image of Ama Divers was of old ladies going into the ocean and diving for oysters for pearls or other high-priced shellfish. Movies tend to show incredibly beautiful and sensual Japanese women lithely diving into the depths and bringing up some succulent oyster. If anyone here has seen the amazing 1985 Juzo Itami film, Tampopo, you saw the scene in which a young girl pulls an oyster out of the ocean and sells it to a mysterious man in a white suit…
I’ll just embed it from youtube rather than give you my inept description.
This particular beautiful Japanese Ama Diver is not the one I’m writing about though. Recently on some interviews of new divers at an Ama Diver festival, 19 year old Misaki Omukai raised eyebrows when featured on a short NHK documentary.
Here she is in a video below, and maybe you can see why she is one of the hot topics on the Japanese bulletin boards right now.
She is still too young and inexperienced to be on her own in the ocean, and the commentator on the video mentions that despite spending her whole life swimming around in the ocean in this area, it is still dangerous for her. You can see her taking some huge sea urchins and preparing some fresh “uni” for the some tourists.
At the end of the interview she does mention wanting more tourists to come to the area, so for full disclosure, I want to say that I have some doubts that this girl will ever be a real Japanese traditional Ama Diver, and there is a good chance she is a part of the town’s campaign to get more tourists.
I also think it will work considering how many people in Japan are commenting about how much they would pay for the chance to have some seafood served by Ms. Misaki Omukai of Kuji City in Iwate Prefecture.
Excellent post. These are my kind of women.
NO VIDEO 🙁
Sorry about the video removal! I’ve replaced it with a more recent video… thank you very much for the heads up Mr. A!
Hi readers. I just wanted to throw in a comment that there have been rumors that Misaki Omukai recently quit her job as an Ama Diver citing health issues. Some believe that the hazing of veteran workers may also have been a factor. Many people are hoping she pursues an acting or modeling career. Despite her experience, she is still young and still popular on the internet.