SEOUL — Every month, hundreds of South Korean men fly to Vietnam, the Philippines, Mongolia, Nepal and Uzbekistan on special trips. An agent escorts each man to see many women in a single day, sometimes all gathered in the same hall.
Like a judge in a beauty pageant, the man interviews the women, many of them 20 years younger than he, and makes a choice.
The trip, for "mail-order" brides, has long been a fixture of life in Asia. Lonesome Japanese rice farmers in villages devoid of women have been finding brides this way for many years; so have some Europeans, including Scandinavians from small towns. The practice, which can involve profiteering, is so controversial that it is illegal in the Philippines.
But it is increasingly a solution for thousands of Korean men every year who are desperate to find wives - sometimes for better, sometimes for worse.
In some cases, immigrant wives end up mistreated, misunderstood - and quickly separated from their Korean husbands.
Some civic groups and human rights groups in Korea have said that these speedily arranged marriages were tantamount to human trafficking, or "buying wives."
These groups have urged the government to provide education and cultural programs to help these women assimilate to Korean culture.
Nonetheless, the phenomenon is not without significant implications for this fast-advancing society.
In South Korea, school textbooks still teach children to be proud of their racial purity.
But government data depict a different picture: a country that is gradually transforming into a multiethnic society.
Last year, the number of Koreans marrying foreigners rose 38 percent to 35,447, or 11 percent of the newlyweds that year. Most of these marriages involved Korean men and foreign women.
Once considered a national embarrassment, biracial marriages are, albeit slowly, eroding racial prejudices in a country whose extreme isolation once earned it a designation as "the hermit kingdom."
Experts say the trend toward biracial marriages will pick up, mostly driven by men seeking foreign brides.
The pattern is not unfamiliar in Asia. Young Korean women leave rural towns for the lights and high-paying jobs of the cities, while sons often remain to take over family farms. Financially independent women consider marriage an option rather than a must.
To make matters worse, by 2012 in South Korea there will be 124 men for every 100 women in the age group of 24 to 30 - a result of rampant abortions of female fetuses in the 1980s. In time, men begin to look abroad for brides.
"It worked fine with me. In fact, I felt so lucky I wondered whether this was real," said Seo Soo Il, who found a bride in Mongolia in May.
In South Korea, Seo is not exactly "Mr. Right." He is 46, divorced and does not work for a big business. He wanted his wife to look after his aging parents. It was no wonder he was snubbed in three matchmaking sessions at home.
In Ulan Bator, Seo met seven Mongolian women in their 30s.
In a second session in the same day, he interviewed seven more women, these in their 20s, all eager to marry a Korean man.
Eventually he selected Nyamjav Aztegsh, a 32-year-old English teacher. She, too, is pleased with the outcome.
"Korean men work hard and have jobs," Nyamjav said, explaining her decision to join a rising tide of Asian women who cross borders to escape poverty and to seek a better life.
The number of South Korean men marrying foreigners last year totaled 25,594, more than double from two years ago, according to the Korea National Statistical Office.
Among foreign brides, Chinese topped the list at 18,527 last year, a 38 percent increase from 2003. Vietnamese brides were next, at 2,462, up 75 percent. Japanese, Filipinos and Mongolians followed at 1,224, 964 and 504, respectively.
Korean society in general, however, still tends to consider the influx of foreign spouses "a crisis," rather than an "irreversible" force making South Korean families more diverse, said Yang Sung Eun, a professor in family studies at Chosun University in South Korea.
In Korea, a country that suffered frequent foreign invasions, mixed-race children have by tradition been treated as outcasts. As the country becomes more cosmopolitan, however, the old stereotypes are fading. Koreans overseas return home with foreign spouses. Several biracial entertainers have become pop idols in recent years.
International marriage first became popular in the 1990s, when provincial authorities sometimes flew ethnic Korean brides in China to match them with single men of an entire village.
"Men who come to our agency are mindful of the prejudices our society still holds against international marriages," said Lee Eun Tae, head of Inter Wed, a matchmaking agency. "But after they were rejected several times" in Korea, some of them look outside the country.
Meanwhile, the image of South Korean lifestyle gained a boost from ubiquitous Samsung and LG products and Korean soap operas popular throughout Asia.
"Through TV, I had a good image about Korean men," said Tranthi Cam Loan, a 24-year-old Vietnamese who married her Korean husband in 2003.
Her husband, Bae Il Hwan, a 39-year-old divorcee with two children, said that in a Vietnamese woman he found attributes no longer evident in many Korean women: Confucian decorum and devotion to housekeeping and family.
But mixed marriages do not always have storybook endings. In the Roman Catholic Center for Philippine Migrants in Seoul, a dozen women were taking refuge, including a 19-year-old Filipino who wanted to use only her last name, Abon.
When Abon first met her 38-year-old South Korean husband in the Philippines in December, she said, she believed in love at first sight. But by May, she said, her husband had threatened her with a knife and "boxed me because of sex."
Lee Sang Rin, who runs a telephone hot line for abused women, said many women coming to South Korea were surprised when they realized their husbands were often a marginalized group - poor, handicapped and even mentally unstable.
"The women don't speak the language. The cultural differences are a big challenge," said Juan Dayang Jr., a vice consul at the Philippines Embassy in Seoul. Some Korean husbands think they "bought" their brides and when not satisfied, ask their agents for "another chance," he said.
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