Dating Trends in Korea!

I don't know how girls decide on this..but 30 seconds? Wow! So it must be the physical appearance or what? Here's the article from chosun.com entitled "Most Blind Dates Fix Fate Within 30 Seconds" 

Most Korean men and women decide whether they like a blind date within 30 seconds of meeting them, a recent straw poll shows.

Matchmaking company Baroyeon released a poll on Sunday of 500 single men and women who recently went on blind dates. It found that 63 percent of respondents believe 30 seconds is enough time to figure out if the other person is attractive and a prospective partner.

The trend was even more pronounced among women, with 72 percent agreeing that they could decide almost instantly and 18 percent saying they needed five minutes to assess their date. Only 8.4 percent replied that they needed several dates to make a fair judgment.

Just over half of the men surveyed, or 54 percent, said they know whether they like the partner or not in 30 seconds, and 26 percent needed five minutes.

However, men and women reacted differently once they decided the person was to their liking. Among men, 71.6 percent said they would commit to a relationship, whereas 77.6 percent of women said they would test the waters first and meet other people before making their mind up.

englishnews@chosun.com / Sep. 22, 2011 07:39 KST
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2011/09/22/2011092200351.html


Another article tells us a new way of sogaeting (blind date) here in Korea. I want to know exactly where in Sinchon can we find this bar. The title is "New Dating Trend by Tab PC Catching On."

A new way of finding romantic matches using tablet PCs installed at a bar in Seoul is catching on as young people find that technology enables them to overcome their reluctance to approach strangers.

The bar, in Seoul's thriving Sinchon area, was crowded at 11 p.m. on Aug. 8 as customers, many of them university students, sat quietly hunched over the hi-tech tabs rating each other's on-screen images mentally and whispering to their friends.

The bar lends the digital hardware to each party of customers, who can communicate with people they take a shine to at other tables due to a special program that intra-links the tabs. They first talk on an instant messaging service, then move on to video chatting and finally, if all goes well, elect to share a table.

Customer feedback so far has been positive. A 22-year-old female college student who visits the bar two or three times a week said, "At ordinary bars, I'm reluctant to meet someone, because I can only judge them based on their looks, but this bar is great because we can talk before we meet." 

"This way of meeting people eases the social embarrassment of having to turn someone down," added the young lady, who has the surname Kim.

Meanwhile, the owner of the bar said business was booming as word-of-mouth spreads.

"We usually get about 20 tables shared by customers on weekends," said the owner, a 50-year-old man surnamed Kim. "People are lining up in front of the bar to get in."

But not all of the customers leave satisfied, and fewer find their knight in shining armor or dream girl.

One man who visited the bar for the first time said that many people often cut off their interlocutor mid-stream because the Internet allows them to short-circuit entrenched rules of social etiquette.

"I feel very uncomfortable, actually, as it seems as though the kind of bad manners you encounter on the Internet have found a good home here," said the man, a 33-year-old office worker who only provided his surname, Jung.

englishnews@chosun.com / Aug. 19, 2011 07:24 KST 
http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2011/08/19/2011081900374.html
 

Pictures taken from these sites
Khuntoria: http://www.allkpop.com/2011/09/nichkhun-and-victoria-confirmed-to-be-leaving-we-got-married
Min Ho and Min Young: http://k-popexpress.com/lee-min-ho-park-min-young-dating/
Yonghwa and Seohyun: http://vivi-love-mylife.blogspot.com/2011_06_01_archive.html
Jae Jung and UEE: http://www.fanpop.com/spots/we-got-married/quiz/show/587096/whats-age-difference-between-uee-jae-jung
Hyun Joong and Hwang Bo: http://rainaftershine501photos.wordpress.com/2010/03/25/offcial-photo-hyun-joong-hwang-bo-never-released-we-got-married-wedding-shots/