SEOUL, South Korea — As hopeful singles at the speed dating event shifted from table to table introducing themselves, Park Chang-won, a 32-year-old firefighter, grew more and more morose.
By the time he reached the last table, Mr. Park, whose dark eyebrows give him a brooding look, was uttering only his name and age. Then he sank into silence.
“It felt awkward from the outset,” Mr. Park said later, as he explained that a lifetime spent around men — at boys’ schools, the military and now as a fireman — had made meeting women harder.
Anywhere else, Mr. Park’s dating woes might have been strictly personal. But in South Korea, fretful about plummeting birthrates but still tied to conservative ideas about matchmaking, solving the difficulties of the lovelorn has become something of a national priority. In perhaps the surest sign of that anxiety, the event he attended was one of dozens of dating parties nationwide sponsored by an unlikely matchmaker, the government.
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Long but interesting imo. Also mods, can we get a news/articles tag? Because there is no tag that works with articles like these.![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
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