A file photo shows two people are dating. Mass blind dates are common in South Korea but there's something unusual about a recent event in Asan: the city government is the one playing Cupid.

A wisecracking professional matchmaker breaks the ice as 40 people aged¹ in their twenties and thirties gather at a hotel for a blind date.

Mass blind dates are common in South Korea but there's something unusual about this event in Asan: the city government is the one playing Cupid.

"Matchmaking is no longer a personal business, it's the duty of the nation," Yu Yang-Sun, a municipal official organizing the recent event, said in the city 90 km south of Seoul.

"Newborn babies are hardly seen here these days. If the young grow older unmarried and produce no kids, the nation will no longer have the basic human resources to sustain itself."

Asan's birthrate is 1.08, much lower even than the low national average, according to Ko Bun-Ja, one of Yu's deputies helping² organize the event.

Five hours into the mass blind-date session, 12 of the 40 had decided³ to keep dating - much to the delight of city officials.

After years of promoting family planning in the nation of 48.6 million, South Korea in recent years has become increasingly alarmed at the prospect⁴ of an aging society - with a huge pensions bill and too few workers to sustain economic growth.

The government is increasing the number of nursery schools and providing more financial support - such as tax breaks or subsidized baby-sitting - for married couples who start families. Cash gifts are sometimes provided for newborns.

But the birthrate - the average number of babies born during a woman's lifetime - remained near the world's lowest at 1.19 last year. Fears are growing that the population will start shrinking within a decade.

Officials say the nation's low birthrate is partly due to more women joining the workforce⁵ and the lack of a comprehensive welfare system.

The high cost of child-rearing is also a deterrent⁶.

Household spending on education reached an all-time high of 39.8 trillion won ($29.5 billion) last year, up 7.7 percent from a year earlier despite the economic downturn.

"This is a country where it's really uncomfortable to marry and raise children, given the shocking cost of education," said Bang Jeong-Ju, 30, one of the women on the blind date in Asan.

"My friends all say that if you cannot afford to give your kids a really good education, just don't get pregnant. Otherwise, pregnancy⁷ would be a sin."

40名二三十岁的年轻男女聚在一个酒店参加一场相亲会，一位俏皮的专业媒人打破了现场的沉默。

大型相亲会在韩国十分普遍，但这次牙山市举行的相亲会有些特别：牵线搭桥的“爱神丘比特”是当地市政府。

组织这次相亲会的市政官员柳扬松说：“做媒不再是个人的事，而是整个国家的责任。”牙山市位于首尔以南90公里。

“近年来在牙山很难看到新生儿，如果年轻人到了一定的年龄段不结婚不要孩子，那么国家将失去维持发展的基本人力资源。”

协助组织此次相亲会的Ko Bun-Ja称，牙山市的生育率为1.08，比已经很低的全国平均水平还要低得多。

让政府官员颇感欣慰的是，相亲会进行五个小时后，40人中就有12人已决定将继续交往。

韩国目前的人口为4860万，在推行计划生育政策数年后，近年来韩国社会的老龄化趋势日趋严重，养老金支出数额庞大，而可以维持经济发展的劳动力则太少。

目前，韩国政府正增加幼儿园数量，并为结婚成家的人们提供更多的财政支持，例如减税或为照顾孩子提供补贴等等，有时还为新生儿发放礼金。

但韩国去年的生育率（每个女性一生中平均生育孩子的数量）仅为1.19，仍接近全球最低水平。政府越来越担心人口数量在十年之内会开始减少。

政府官员称，造成韩国低生育率的一部分原因是因为越来越多的女性进入职场，而且福利制度也不够完善。

抚养孩子成本高也是一个阻碍因素。

去年韩国的家庭教育开支创历史纪录，高达39.8万亿韩元（合295亿美元），尽管受到经济衰退的影响，但仍比前一年增加了7.7%。

30岁的Bang Jeong-Ju小姐参加了此次牙山市的相亲会，她说：“在这个国家结婚和生孩子会过得很不舒服，因为教育费用实在太高。”

“我的朋友们都说，如果你无法为孩子提供真正良好的教育，那就别怀孕，否则怀孕将是一种罪过。”

Vocabulary:

break the ice:打破沉默

nursery school:幼儿园