So Much for ‘Ein Volk, Ein Reich.’

Viewed in its historical context, this is only the latest wave of, umm, intercourse between Korea and its neighbors.

In the county, with a population of about 25,000, 150 couples were married last year. Forty-four of the marriages were international ones, mostly between Korean men and Southeast Asian women. In other words, about three of 10 Korean men in the county who married last year had foreign brides.

Korea’s proud identity of “one blood, one nation” is becoming outdated.

Oy gevalt. For a people who are not walled off from the entire outside world, South Koreans sure do believe some amazing things. Is Koreans’ resemblance to Chinese, Mongolians, Japanese, all of whom have occupied and/or traded with Korea for millenia, just a remarkable coincidence? Let’s hope that myth doesn’t die as ugly as the “no gays in Korea” myth did. I feel the need to note that the “special reporting team” that wrote this story seems to have a fairly open-minded world view.

The JoongAng Ilbo analyzed family registries collected by the Supreme Court from 249 cities, counties and districts around the nation from 2003 to 2005. The proportion of international marriages nationally has increased during the last three years, from 8.4 percent in 2003 to 11.4 percent in 2004 and then to 13.6 percent last year. Last year, Seoul ranked first in number of international marriages “• 14,804, followed by Gyeonggi province with 7,317 and North Gyeongsang province with 2,344. But the proportion of international marriages to all marriages was highest in South Jeolla province, at 18.5 percent, followed by Seoul’s 18.2 percent and North Jeolla province’s 17.6 percent.

When most of those half-Korean, half-Filipina girls reach age 20, all three of us will be of an age at which we’d be ordered to register with the state for even downloading swimsuit pictures of them online. Read the rest on your own.
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