[3] She managed to achieve her position in Jeju thanks to the island's egalitarian and matrifocal culture, where women had greater economic and social independence than the rest of the country, whose Neo-Confucian ideology enforced strong female repression.
[3] A lot of social discrimination existed in 1739, during King Yeongjo's reign of Joseon, when Kim Man-deok was born.
At the age of 22, Kim managed to get her name removed from the gisaeng registry and regain her yangmin status [5][8] and subsequently opened an inn for merchants (객주)[9] as well as start a commission agency for port trade, acting as an intermediate between merchants from the mainland and from Jeju;[3] she sold local specialties such as horsehair, seaweed, ear shell, ox bezoar, pearls, cloth, accessories and cosmetics, and also bought grain from land and sold them to Jeju people.
[5] Thanks to her knowledge, and by exploiting the tax laws, Kim obtained the monopoly of rice and salt, accumulating great wealth and becoming, at the age of 50, one of the two richest people in Joseon.
[10] The governor of Jeju petitioned the court to send 20,000 bags of rice, but seven of the twelve boats sent were wrecked on the way and 170,000 people died of starvation.
[12][14] The king agreed and also granted her the honorary title and the position of nurse of the palace dispensary (의녀반수; 醫女班首).
The musical was prepared by Jeju City, which had wanted to build up a representative culture brand, and depicts Gim Man-deok's life and her achievements.