Min Joo Lee su The Conversation descrive il recente fenomeno di donne provenienti da varie parti del mondo che viaggiano verso la Corea del Sud per trovare un fidanzato. Questo fenomeno e’ dovuto alla crescente popolarita’ del K-pop e dei K-drama:

Drawn to the characters they see on their TVs, they start to wonder if real-life South Korean men resemble the K-drama male characters, both in their looks and behaviors.

They come from all around the world – North America, Western Europe, Russia – but tend to have a similar profile: heterosexual women in their early to mid- 20s.

To some of these tourists, the opportunity to date these men was a way to fulfill a fantasy. One German tourist told me that when she meets a Korean man, she feels as if she’s “living in [her] own Korean television drama.”

L’uomo coreano e’ spesso considerato romantico, gentile, affascinante, un cavaliere, in contrasto con gli uomini dei paesi da cui queste turiste provengono:

“I feel so safe around Korean men,” one Swedish woman told me.

Per molte turiste però il viaggio può rivelarsi una delusione.

Most of the tourists I interviewed and stayed in touch with left the country somewhat disappointed. Some did manage to have a short fling with a man; but in most cases, these relationships – exceedingly difficult to maintain at a long distance – fizzled out.

A Spanish woman I interviewed broke up with her Korean boyfriend shortly after returning to Spain. “You have given me nothing but pain,” she wrote in an Instagram post.

Nonostante questo, molte delle donne intervistate dall’autrice non hanno abbandonato il loro sogno di trovare l’anima gemella coreana:

 They believed that they were simply unlucky this time around – that there still existed the possibility of meeting the perfect man during a future visit to South Korea.