Humans of Jeju

She loves both summer and stationery. She has been living on Jeju Island, where she can freely pursue her passions, for 13 years. Facing job rejections during her twenties, she spent her youth on Jeju Island and even met her husband here. As she traveled around the Island, she worked as a guesthouse staff and later ran a shop in a small container in front of Yongnuni Oreum. During her charming you...

From a young age, she loved both cooking and languages. While she became an English teacher for practical reasons, her thirst for languages led her to study abroad in Germany. Then, she embarked on a backpacking journey to a rural village in Italy. Meeting a kind farming family there, she spent nearly 10 years there learning about food stories and the Italian language while nurturing her dream of...

Born and raised in Jeju, from a young age, he enjoyed creating and drawing things. When he entered college, he began to learn sewing techniques. Having a talent for sewing, he made bags for farmers while helping his parents with their farm work. After that, he gradually designed and showcased various workwear, starting from the outfits for farming to different kinds of workwear. He creates product...

Kim So-yeon lives in a small and charming village called Hagari in Aewol, Jeju, with her husband, two children who are in the 5th grade and the 1st grade, and their pet dog. They moved to Jeju to provide their children with diverse experiences in the world. When the COVID-19 pandemic began, she learned that many children were unable to have proper meals, and with the goal of sharing and giving bac...

A farmer who has been raising organic tangerine farm for seven years. Since 2021, Moon Hee-sun has been serving as the representative of the “Righteous Farmer Agricultural Association Corporation”, established by members of the Local Food Research Society to promote and revitalize Jeju’s local food. Along with 50 teams of farmers, processing companies, and chefs, the corporation has been running t...

Living with his wife on a farm in Namwon-eup, Seogwipo City, he is a tangerine farmer and the leader of the band ‘Samchunseu’. He is also a guitar instructor at a lifelong learning center. He has been scuba diving for a long time and, for the past 10 years, has been involved in retrieving deep sea trash with fellow instructors. Since last year, he has been increasing his band activities, planning...

Since 2015, she has been living on Jeju Island working as a caricature artist. During the time when caricatures were unfamiliar in Korea, she first encountered it at SeaWorld in San Diego, USA. Falling in love with caricatures, she established the company, ‘FUN Caricature’, in Korea in 2002 and began specialized training in caricature art. Afterwards, she formed a team of caricature artists and op...

Born and raised in Jeju Island, Kim Bong-chan majored in botany in college and started working at Yeomiji Botanical Garden in 1990. As he went through positions such as the director of Pyeonggang Botanical Garden, he consistently observed and studied plants even while walking through Hallasan Mountain and forests. Based on such experiences, he accumulated knowledge and experience about gardens whi...

For 10 years, she worked as a middle and high school teacher in Jeju and Seoul, and after giving birth, worked as an English and essay writing instructor. While volunteering as a librarian at her first child’s school, she developed an interest in school libraries. Coincidentally, while participating in community activist training at the Urban Regeneration Support Center, it led her to establish a...

He was born and raised in Pyeongdae-ri, Jeju City. After briefly studying at a univeristy on the mainland, he returned to his hometown and has been farming for 45 years. One day, he heard a life story of an elderly villager who was over 90 years old, and his eyes opened to the untold stories of the village. For three years, he met with 33 elderly villagers and collected stories about the village....

The youth community project group Jitda consists of three members: Vina, Yunda, and Sol. Their real names are Park Jeong-suk, Kim Ji-su, and Jo Jun-hee. They use nicknames to emphasize mutual respect and equality. Vina represents the energy of the land in Indian mythology, Yunda means ‘opening up’, and Sol means pine tree, chosen out of a sense of lament for the disappearing pine trees. The three...

The two actors are a married couple. Since 2017, the couple has built their life in Sehwa 1-ri Village of Pyoseon-myeon Area, which is wife Yura’s hometown, and have been raising their two children there. They founded the ‘CRA Cooperative Association’ and are operating the CRA Art School. Focusing on theatrical play, the couple are providing the local residents with opportunities to experience art...

After seeing news footage of foot-and-mouth disease culling, he became interested in the environment, and connecting his interest to his work, founded <Green Bliss>. <Green Bliss> is a brand that creates lifestyle products such as beautiful, comfortable, and durable socks, masks, handkerchiefs, t-shirts, and hats using plant-based organic materials to minimize harm to the environment....

<Book Salon Imago Jeju Archive Center> is a bookstore and publishing house founded by Kim Chae-su, the representative of <Imago Publishing>, who had been publishing humanities books in Seoul for 13 years. Focusing on Jeju’s cultural history, she has arranged the shelves with humanities books, art books, ecological books, and local archive books. She worked as an editor, making academic...

After experiencing a burnout from work in Seoul, she started pursuing a vegan lifestyle at the recommendation of a friend. While taking a break in Jeju, a place she always loved, she tried making vegan butter and loved it. As more and more friends enjoyed the vegan butter she made, they encouraged her to open a store. In June 2020, she opened a vegan butter shop called “Moonsa Oil Shop” in a peace...

The couple work by serializing webtoons. Go Dongdong gained attention in Europe by publishing <Leah> through a French publishing company called Kana. In Korea, he made his debut as a webtoon artist with <Hell Subway> in 2011. His works also include <Detective Poe>, <The Flute-Playing Man>, and <Fantasy Forest>. After moving to Jeju Island, he is studying about the Apr...

Rice Nice Sehwa Rice Cake and Mill is a traditional-meets-modern rice cake shop. The mill that was run by grandparents for 40 years is now a rice cake that incorporates Jeju local ingredients with their daughter and granddaughter. Borigaeyeok, made in the traditional Jeju way since 1982, is the signature menu of the store. In addition, as the granddaughter’s recipe is combined with the traditional...

In 2011, taking a break from work, she started living in Nap-eup village. She often spent time at the nearby pond, but frustrated by seeing people litter, she started picking up trash and ended up beautifying the area. She enjoyed planting and cultivating flowers, and through this, she found time to heal herself. In order to share this joy with more people, she created a community and started givi...

CEO Shim Mi-hyun makes children swimsuits using eco-friendly materials. Four years ago, she witnessed her son, who had started swimming, get injured from the seams of his swimsuit. Despite her searching, she was unable to find swimsuits that are seamless. Knowing that there were no swimsuits made with the cares from a mother’s heart, she decided to make them herself. She went through many trials a...

Kim Do Ma is the chief executive of the Kim Tek Hwa Museum as well as the son of the artist who captured the scenery and people of Jeju on his canvas throughout his life. Following in the footsteps of his father, he too is an artist and is currently working on urban regeneration in Jungang-dong of Seogwipo City as a sculptor. Also, planning to open his first studio this year, he plans to expand th...

Lulu and Lala, who left for Jeju in search of an independent way of life, met each other by chance on a day of typhoon. Realizing that the direction of life they pursue are similar, they decided to live together and became a couple. Having a rule of their own which is living a handmade life and not harming the environment, for 3 years now, the couple has been making beeswax candle which burns and...

In 2018, through the Uncle Village Creation Project by Jeju Tourism Organization, Yang Gunmo established a relationship with Sehwa Village. Currently, he works as a village PD at Sehwa Village Cooperative. He is in charge of everything related to the village from planning local travel to looking over a café to talking with the village elders and so on. All on top of creating something fun for Sehw...

After working as a fashion brand marketer for 10 years, he moved his life in Seoul to Jeju Island and chose to become a farmer. Using his experience as a fashion brand marketer, he became a farmer who created a brand of his own. He created the brand <Just Jeju>, meaning just doing things that he loves, to sell agricultural products. For 4 years now, he has been doing eco-friendly farming for...

Ceramist who studied both Korean and Chinese traditional ceramics and is the representative of ceramic craft brand called ‘Sanhoyo’. While working in China, she unexpectedly returned to Jeju Island three years ago due to COVID-19. Currently, she is making ceramic crafts using the sea shells around the Moseulpo Harbor and dirts from all around the nation. Her representative work is the Half Moon Ja...

She majored in sociology at university and her realization about how unfair the world can be inspired her to be involved in various development cooperation missions in many underdeveloped countries through KOICA. She once dreamed of a better world overseas and now she still strives to move towards her goal with her bookstore called 'Another Page' located in her hometown, Jeju island. Her bookstore...