marriage tour

“More and more South Korean men are finding wives outside of South Korea, where a surplus of bachelors, a lack of marriageable Korean partners and the rising social status of women have combined to shrink the domestic market for the marriage-minded male. Bachelors in China, India and other Asian nations, where the traditional preference for sons has created a disproportionate number of men now fighting over a smaller pool of women, are facing the same problem. . . .

Now, that industry is seizing on an increasingly globalized marriage market and sending comparatively affluent Korean bachelors searching for brides in the poorer corners of China and Southeast and Central Asia. The marriage tours are fueling an explosive growth in marriages to foreigners in South Korea, a country whose ethnic homogeneity lies at the core of its self-identity. In 2005, marriages to foreigners accounted for 14 percent of all marriages in South Korea, up from 4 percent in 2000. . . .”

(International Herald Tribune, Published: February 21, 2007)
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/02/21/news/brides.php


In Vietnam, an increasing number of young women are marrying foreigners through marriage brokers. Last year, more than 10,000 Vietnamese women married men from South Korea alone. For now, Vietnam remains a popular source of brides, second only to China. More South Korean men have been using marriage brokers to find wives in Vietnam- they travel to Vietnam to pick out their wife, marry and honeymoon there, then return with their new wife to Korea. Some say that the business demeans and takes advantage of poor women but brokers say they are merely matching the needs of Korean men and foreign women seeking better lives.