Word: southing
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...Kang, 40, is happy with her choice - so happy, in fact, that she now helps her husband Hong Seung Woo with the matchmaking agency he runs to connect North Korean women and South Korean men. Hong opened the business in 2006, a year after he and his wife were married. As of last September, there were officially over 17,000 North Koreans living in South Korea, triple the number from 2004, according to the Unification Ministry, the government agency in Seoul in charge of North Korean affairs. Almost 80% of North Koreans defecting today are women. "This is a shortcut...
...couple's agency, Nam Nam Buk Nyo, a name taken from a traditional Korean proverb saying that handsome men are from the South and beautiful women live in the North, has matched 250 women like Kang with South Korean husbands in four years. Hong says there are at least nine other similar agencies operating around the country, most of them established in 2008, and he estimates about 1,000 similar matches have been made...
...Until recently, most North Koreans landing in the South, like Kang, had little or no contact with the outside world before they left home. Figuring out how to integrate into the fast-paced, capitalist world of Seoul can take years. Although the two Koreas share a history and some cultural values, North and South Korea have been divided since the 1950-53 Korean War. Before the North's famine in the 1990s, only a privileged few with money and connections to border guards could make the crossing. ("If you pay enough, you can get anyone out," says Kang.) After decades...
...crush of the famine, however, which is believed to have killed up to 2 million people, sent thousands of North Koreans fleeing to China and, eventually, to South Korea through church groups or brokers. In the past three or four years, many new arrivals have already had family or some connection to South Korea. "The most envied ones [in North Korea today] are those who have relatives in the South and get remittances," says Park. "So now when [North Koreans] come, they are confident and eager to integrate." Ju Seong Soon, a 25-year-old North Korean woman, studied English...
...Matchmaking companies like Kang and Hong's play a uniquely symbiotic role in South Korea, helping balance the nation's surplus of bachelors. In recent years, more male children have been born to South Korean households than girls, the result of sex screening and selective abortion due to the preference of couples for male babies. In recent years, many of these men have taken home wives from other parts of Asia, a solution that has left many couples grappling with a big cultural gap. Marrying a North Korean woman, Hong says, is a better fit. "They share our same traditions...