Udo

Udo is the exposed top of a volcanic cone and its surrounding lava shelf, one of the many small islands formed around Jeju. For centuries it was not lived on at all: under Joseon it was kept as pasture for government horses and cattle, and people from the Jeju mainland crossed only to graze animals and to fish. Its name, "cow island", comes from its low, reclining profile seen from Seongsan rather than from the herds.

Permanent settlement was permitted in 1840, and villages grew around the sheltered western harbours. The islanders lived on barley, millet, garlic and peanuts grown in thin volcanic soil behind stone windbreaks, and above all on the sea. Women divers, the haenyeo, worked the shallow reefs for abalone, conch and seaweed, which they sold or dried; in a place with almost no other cash income, their earnings often supported whole households, and Udo became one of the strongholds of the diving tradition.

A lighthouse stands high on the hill to guide shipping through the strait. The 20th century otherwise brought hardship and emigration, and the population fell steadily as young people left for Jeju City, the mainland and Japan. Tourism changed the island's fortunes from the 1990s onwards, as day trips from Seongsan grew into a steady flow, and cafés, guesthouses and rental yards replaced some of the farming. The number of visitors a small island can absorb is now the central local question.

Udo's culture is Jeju's, concentrated. The island speech belongs to Jejueo, the distinct island language that UNESCO lists as critically endangered, and older residents still use it among themselves. Village shrines stand in small groves, and rites for the sea and the wind, once the backbone of the year, are kept up by a shrinking number of families.

The haenyeo define the place. Women who dive without breathing equipment for abalone, conch, sea urchin and seaweed have worked these shallows for generations, organised into village diving collectives with their own rules about who may harvest what and when. The tradition is inscribed on the UNESCO intangible heritage list, and Udo's divers are among the best known; most are now elderly, and the orange floats bobbing offshore are a rarer sight each year.

Everything else is shaped by wind and stone. Houses sit low behind basalt walls with roof ropes tied in a grid, fields are divided by the same black stone, and round stone enclosures protect family graves. Visitors are part of daily life now — the island's economy depends on them — but residents draw a firm line between the coast road and the working parts of the island, and the quiet after the last ferry leaves is something people here value and talk about.

Fewer than two thousand people live on Udo, spread across a handful of villages on the second-largest island of Jeju Province, 2.8 kilometres off its east coast. The population is old: many houses belong to families whose younger members live on Jeju or the mainland, and the school is small.

The economy now rests on visitors. Ferries bring several thousand people on a busy summer day, and residents run guesthouses, cafés, restaurants and the bicycle, scooter and electric-cart hire yards along the harbour road. Farming continues on a small scale — garlic, barley and the peanuts the island is known for — and the haenyeo still dive in season, selling their catch to restaurants and to buyers on Jeju.

The rhythm of the day is set by the ferry timetable. Mornings are quiet until the first boats arrive, the coast road is busy through the middle of the day, and by evening the island is left to its residents. Winter is slow, with fewer sailings, many businesses shut and gales that can cut the island off for a day or two at a time. Local debate turns on the pressure of day trips, road safety on the narrow circuit, rubbish and fresh water, and the balance between tourism and the farming and diving that came before it.

The island's signature is ttangkong, its small peanuts, grown in sandy volcanic soil and sweeter and smaller than the usual crop. They are roasted and sold in bags, ground into a paste, blended into makgeolli, the cloudy rice beer, and above all churned into peanut soft-serve ice cream, sprinkled with crushed nuts and sold at cafés around the harbours and the beaches.

The sea supplies the rest. Sea urchin gathered by the haenyeo goes into seongge-guk, a clear soup thickened with brown seaweed, and is spooned over rice; conch is sliced raw or boiled, and abalone appears grilled or in jeonbok-juk, a mild rice porridge. Haemul-jjamppong, a spicy seafood noodle soup, and kalguksu, hand-cut wheat noodles in shellfish broth, are the most ordered lunches, and grilled or braised hairtail and tilefish come across from the Jeju ports.

Jeju's staples are all here too: heuk-dwaeji black pork grilled over charcoal with the salty anchovy dip meljeot, gogi-guksu noodles in pork broth, and gamgyul tangerines and hallabong citrus in winter, pressed into juice or turned into cakes and chocolate. Because supplies come by boat, menus are short and seasonal, and many kitchens close early once the last ferry has gone.