I moved to South Korea with no long-term plan. After 4 years of teaching, I've built an unconventional life on an island.

Kylie Genter moved to South Korea after graduating from college in New York with no career plan. Provided by Kylie Genter

This-as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Kylie Genter, 36, a Haenyeo diver on Jeju Island, South Korea. It's been edited for length and clarity.

I'd been teaching English in South Korea for four years when I learned about the Haenyeo — female freedivers who harvest seafood without using modern equipment. I was interested. So, in the summer of 2018, I completed diving lessons with the hopes that maybe I could work with them one day.

A few years later, my Korean husband, a scuba diver, read on a diving group chat that a small village on the southwestern side of Jeju Island was recruiting new divers. Their youngest diver was 68 — I wanted to give it a try.

At first, I was rejected, but I got invited back a month later.…