By Michael Breen

If you've been in Korea for more than a week and spotted foreign males prancing down the street, you will probably have noticed that most of them have Korean girlfriends or wives.

Why is that?

This subject needs to be examined with sensitivity for it can be distressing for some. One young North American lady once told me that she and her single Western friends in Seoul felt they were ``living in a gay bar." Neither Korean nor non-Korean men, they complained, seemed interested in them.

This situation is also unfair for Korean men because while Korea is fully open for foreign men, there are invisible barriers to Korean men in foreign markets. (Only Southeast Asia and the Korean part of China can be considered truly open). Such barriers are a good example of how Korea is victimized in the global market place.

Given that the male-female relationships we're talking about are voluntary, i.e., not coerced, any research about why non-Korean men opt for Korean women and vice versa should focus on the first few months of a relationship. That is because, in relating to women, men generally have a short-term focus. Their vision of the relationship can be anything from the next 10 seconds for nerds to two-and-a-half hours for strategic thinkers. Korean women are not catching men who anticipate that, after the initial ups and downs of cultural difference, married life with them will be a bed of azaleas.

So what is it about those first few months?

The first and obvious answer is that, as we live in Korea, most single women a chap comes across are Korean. Contrary to popular notions, foreigners do not live in national groups. They tend to be dispersed among Koreans.

Now, if all western men in Korea were from Scotland, the answer to our question would be simple. Research shows that the Scots speak the clearest English. We look like Sean Connery, our lifestyle of running after sheep and tossing cabers gives us chiseled shoulders and muscular thighs. We can play the bagpipes and do the sword dance. We have deep hearts because our country is mountainous and we have four seasons and we have been oppressed by foreigners.

But not all aliens are Scots. There are men here from America, India, New Zealand, Belgium, Wales, Pakistan, Egypt ― the whole world in fact. Korean women even go out with men from Canada, a country that is covered in snow and has three time zones.

That shows that the real issue here is not that foreign men prefer Korean women, but that Korean women are targeting foreign men. And if a woman decides to do this, the rest is easy. As you know, men not only have limited focus, but they are also very insecure. All a woman has to do is smile at one to make him think she likes him.

If this is true, it means that Korean women are turning away from their own chaps. Ouchee, Mr. Kim. Why would this be so? Korean men are usually nice fellows, they speak the same language, the young ones are even interested in make-up, and they are far more understanding than non-Koreans when someone has an attack of raw emotionalism. So where's the problem?

If men have a short-term focus, Korean women have a very long-term focus. Once graduated, they are unlikely to date for short-term fun. They're thinking about marriage and the future.

The problem for Korean women used to be a lifetime of mothers-in-law barking orders at them. Now, it's children. Given the horrendous education system, having a child who is not eligible for a foreign school here condemns a woman to 20 years of stress. If the education system were to be changed, not only would children be freer to enjoy their childhood, but so would their mothers.

And the moral of this tale is that all social problems are the government's fault. See you at the million ``ajeossi" march.

Michael Breen is chairman of Insight Communications Consultants, Exclusive Partner of FD International. He can be reached at mike.breen@insightcomms.com.