The 69-year-old is among only 500 “ama” divers in Japan's rural Mie Prefecture, down from more than 4,000 such professionals in the 1970s. Across Japan, only about 2,000 ama divers are left.

From mermaids to mermen: Japan’s ama divers evolve with the times . Ama diver Yushi Ikeda, 37, on his boat. ST PHOTO: WALTER SIM. Walter Sim. UPDATED Jan 14, 2023, 06:33 AM. Thanks for sharing!

Clad in wetsuits, ama divers submerge to great depths without air tanks to gather abalone, seaweed and other seafood, and sometimes pearls. They exist only in Japan and South Korea, but in the ...

But unlike South Korea’s haenyeo divers on Jeju Island, who were inscribed in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage List in 2016, Japan’s ama have yet to receive international recognition. The ...

Clad in wetsuits, ama divers submerge to great depths ... Japan's 'ama' divers struggle to survive as incomes plummet. Today 06:00 am JST Today | 07:00 am JST 0 Comments By Momoko Yoshino. TSU, Mie.

The Ama are female freedivers who have gathered pearls, lobsters and shellfish in Japan's coastal waters for millennia, and who feature heavily in local folklore. There were some 6,000 of these ...

Ama tend to live longer than other women, says Nomura, who knows of an 83-year-old ama who still dives. And women are better divers, she says, because they have an extra layer of fat and can hold ...

Japan Trivia: Mie Pref.'s female ama divers, active since ancient times, plunging in number. February 28, 2024 (Mainichi Japan) Japanese version. An ama skin diver catches fish on the seafloor, ...

It’s here, in these waters, that you find the legendary Ama, the female freedivers who have sought pearls, lobsters, abalone and more for 3,000 years. That’s the folklore, anyway; in any case ...

Join the extraordinary journey of Japan’s traditional pearl divers through the lens of freediving. This video captures the age-old practice, showcasing the skill, tradition, and resilience of ...