#K-Culture: Korea’s Dating Culture is Unlike Any Other!

You’ll encounter more people coupled together than walking alone, just on the streets of Seoul. To be honest, this was one of the more surprising things I discovered on my holiday to Korea. The dating culture in Korea is so strong, but that’s because there’s just so many ways to meet new people, that friendships simply form into something more!

oneroommaking

One of the ways is through ‘hunting bars’. A lot of them are set up like pochas (포차); a huge tent set outside where you eat and drink the night away 🍻 Pochas’ friendly and vibrant atmosphere makes it the perfect place to hang out with friends. So taking this approach, you’ll find what’s now called ‘hunting bars’ in Korea. Groups of single friends go out to these hunting bars in hopes to meet their significant other (as well as make new friends!). Going to these bars is basically the easy way to say that “I’m single and ready for a relationship”. I guess this way of meeting your significant other is not as intimidating as it’s more of a hang-out where you could meet your lover simply by chance.

Translated from Careet

Social media now plays a huge part in dating culture and that’s the same for middle and high school students too. At the beginning of the year, most schools will have an Instagram account for each class to document the year’s memories. Other classes can interact, like and follow each other too! So if a student sees someone that piques their interest, they’ll DM the classes’s Instagram account so they can share each other's personal Instagram account. 

Yonsei University

So what about university students? During university festivals, there’s events held by clubs like the ‘blind date booth’. Kookmin University, a research university in Seoul, came up with a blind date booth that was themed around MBTI types. They arranged 16 boxes to represent each of the 16 MBTI types. A student would put their contact information in their representative MBTI box. Then another student would come along and choose the MBTI they get along best. The student will draw a name out of that MBTI box and if they do decide to contact them, that’s when a new relationship could be in the making 💘