Female refugees from the north are being paired with husbands in the south. But some fear that the patriarchy is the real winner...Dating had never been easy for Kim Jeong-soon. In her native North Korea, couples holding hands were chastised for `disturbing public order`, and when she arrived in South Korea potential suitors were often repelled by the mere fact of the country of her birth.It was with a certain reservation, then, that she went on a blind date with a South Korean man three years ago; Kim Jong-il - whose name in the south is pronounced slightly differently to the late North Korean dictator. They dined on fried chicken and beer and launched right into conversations about marriage, divorce and what a future together might look like. `South Korean men are more attentive and considerate compared with North Korean men, and they´re also more friendly,` Kim said. `But I was really surprised when I first saw the way South Korean men dressed ... in some ways they seemed to care about fashion more than women.`North and South Korea have been divided since the end of the Korean War (1950-53), and except for about a decade ending in 2008, relations between the two have remained frosty. The two nations technically remain in a state of war, since a peace treaty was never signed. There have been occasional outbreaks of violence, most recently in 2010 when 50 people were killed when a South Korean navy corvette was sunk and several islands close to the border were attacked. Continue reading...
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