Korean women are extraordinarily beautiful.
They are sweet, intelligent, many have beautiful long hair, are elegant and sensual. Generally, the Koreans call a lot of attention, wherever they go.!
Korean women are dedicated to family and home. It is notorious the fact that they keep the house clean and extremely organized!. They like to cook, and cook very well, and several Koreans women are famous chefs in great restaurants around the world!
Their appeal to national beauty and maturity, are reasons for people to think Korean women attractive in many aspects. They tend to attract Western men more frequently and often want to get out of Korea by marrying men of the Western world.
Everything in Korea are made with the permission of families. The oldest house is considered the wisest, and thus makes most decisions. This tradition was started many years ago and is still being used today.
Koreans have a great pride in their ancestry and never forget the dead. From an early age, children are taught the respect for elders and people who have died.
When a Korean couple plans to marry, a lot of things happen. First, some marriages are still arranged. This is especially true in
high-class society of Korea. Rich families want their children to marry a son or daughter of a rich family. Thus, marriage is more a union between families than a union between two people. Social position is very important in Korea. They believe that wealth will bring a long and happy life. The arranged marriage starts when a person with a lot of information, is designed to find a spouse for the young man. This person will research the candidates and come to a conclusion. The two people have a little time for dating before they are told to marry. If there is a connection, these two people will remain in her marriage. In recent years, marriage between two people of different social classes are becoming more common, but not the best way to go in the eyes of many families.
Therefore, in contrast to a typical Western family, which is composed by an average of four members, in Korea, the number of members is higher.
The first son: In the tradition and yet in practice, the first son named
Changnam, has a responsibility to stay with their parents and take care of them for the rest of their lives. Beyond this responsibility, Changnam also inherits the family wealth and family law of ancestor worship (Chae-sa). Many young Korean women avoid to marry a man Changnam for fear of work and responsibility that would be put upon them.
Young Children: The youngest children often live with their parents after their marriage, but only temporarily, since it is not their obligation to remain with their parents. Depending on the circumstances, young children are free to leave the house whenever they feel the time is right.
Daughters: The Life of a daughter of a Korean family is very different from the Western. When she marries, she naturally leaves her family and becomes part of the husband's family. So when a Korean woman marries, her name is removed from the record of her family and added to the record of her husband's family.
It should be pretty painful for a Korean woman, because, once she married, she ends up leaving her family home permanently. Therefore, she becomes literally a stranger to her blood family and the husband's family because she is different offspring. However, once she gives birth to a son's relationship with her new family usually strengthens considerably.
Husband and wife have different roles inside the house. Traditionally, the role of the wife is take care of the family within the confines of her home while the husband's role would provide the money income necessary to support the family. The husband is considered the head of the family and is regarded as the sole source of authority.
It is expected that children respect and obey the wishes of their parents, while it is also expected that parents treat family members fairly. The Confucian concept of deference to superiors, elders, is constantly present in the house and order is maintained for such deference. Children obey their parents, a wife obeys her husband, the younger brother would follow his older brothers and so on. A large family in number of members, is becoming less common during the recent years, but the roles and relationships within the family, remain virtually unchanged.
The first and the 60 years birthday are most important to Koreans. The first birthday is celebrated by placing the child, dressed in traditional Korean clothes in front of a table with food and objects. The child is asked to pick one of the objects. Depending on what object the child chooses, presumably, can predict a child's future. For example, if your child picks up money, he will be rich. If he picks a book, it will be a scholar. If he takes the food, it will be a government official.
The 60th anniversary represents the completion of a cycle of the zodiac and is celebrated by family members, offering food to birthday person, beverage and best wishes for long life. Money in a little envelope is usually the choice.
Industrialization and democratization have given women more opportunities to play diverse roles in public life, but the basic structure of a gender division of labor is observable in public life. As of April 1998, 47.7 percent of all adult females worked outside the home. Women's average earnings were 63.4 percent of those of men in the same jobs. In June 1999, there was one woman among seventeen cabinet members and no woman vice minister. Women occupied 2.3 percent of the provincial and local assembly seats in 1999. Women as professional leaders in religious life are limited in numbers in both Christian churches and Buddhist temples. The exception to this pattern is seen in shamanism, in which women dominate as priestesses.
The constitution stipulates equality of all citizens before the law, but the norms and values that guide gender relations in daily life continue to be influenced by an ideology of male superiority. The interplay between these gender role ideologies complicates the patterns and processes of social change in the area of gender role performance and the relative status of women and men.
A woman can and did run for the presidency, but women are expected to behave in a submissive manner in public, informal gatherings such as dinner parties among professional colleagues. In private, informal situations such as family affairs, however, urban middle-class husbands tend to leave the decision making to their wives. Nonetheless, male authority as the household head ( hoju ) is socially expected and the law favors husbands and sons over wives and daughters.
Family background and educational level are important considerations in matchmaking. Marriage between people with a common surname and origin place ( tongsong tongbon ) was prohibited by law until 1997. Many urbanites find their spouse at schools or workplaces and have a love marriage. Others may find partners through arranged meetings made by parents, relatives, friends, and professional matchmakers.
In urban centers, the arranged meeting often takes place in a hotel coffee shop where the man, the woman, and their parents may meet for the first time. After exchanging greetings and some conversation, the parents leave so that the couple can talk and decide whether they would like to see each other again. Most individuals have freedom in choosing a marital partner.
Marriage has been regarded as a rite of passage that confers a social status of adulthood on an individual. Marriage also is thought of as a union of not just a man and a woman but of their families and a means to ensure the continuity of the husband's family line. Ninety percent of women marry in their twenties, although the average age of first-time brides has increased from 20.4 years in 1950 to 25.9 years in 1997. Traditionally, divorce was rare, but it tripled from 1980 to 1994.
Traditionally, remarriages of widows were not allowed and remarriages of divorced women were difficult. However, changes are occurring in the remarriage pattern, especially for divorced women. The ratio of a divorced woman marrying a bachelor used to be lower than that of a divorced man marrying a never-married woman. Since 1995, however, this situation has reversed in favor of women, with a 1997 ratio of 2.9 to 2.6 percent. Divorced women with independent economic means, especially successful professionals, no longer face the traditional gender bias against their remarriage and can marry bachelors who are younger and less occupationally advanced. This phenomenon clearly reveals the importance of the economic aspect of marriage.
Koreans are very status conscious, and their speech behavior reflects the hierarchical relationship between social actors. Except among former classmates and other very close friends, adults do not use first names to address each other. Position titles such as "professor," "manager," "director," and "president" are used in combination with the honorific suffix nim to address a social superior.
Koreans are generally courteous to the extent of being ceremonious when they interact with social superiors but can be very outgoing and friendly among friends and acquaintances of equal social status. Their behavior with strangers in urban public situations may be characterized by indifference and self-centeredness. Koreans appear to be rude to strangers since they generally do not say a word when they accidentally push or jostle other people on the streets, and in the stores, train stations, and airports. Traditional Confucian teaching emphasized propriety in the five sets of human relationships, which included the relations between sovereign and subject, father and son, husband and wife, senior and junior, and friend and friend. Confucianism still serves as the standard of moral and social conduct for many people.
