"I"m in the post-it part," says Kang Eun-ryung (Sociology, "03) when asked about how well her graduation photographs turned out. This is also a joke that is frequently made by Ewhaians, especially when they are talking about thier photographs in graduation albums. It means that their pictures are not beautiful enough to catch the attention of matchmakers, known as "Madam Ddu" in Korean. They mean that when the matchmakers show the albums to clients, their pictures will be under post-it stickers.

Since the school announced its decision to abandon its long-enforced ban on marriage, the sudden emergence of strange women asking Ewha students about personal information has been reported.

An anonymous student in the College of Music says, "I met a woman who asked me whether I have a boyfriend. She kept asking me about my family. She said that she would introduce me to a nice man to get married to if I wanted."
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Along with these "Madam Ddus," the marriage information company Sunoo, Inc. also planned to hold a free blind date event between Ewhaians and its male members. Duo, Inc., another marriage information company, advertised a special offer, which promises 20 percent off of registration fees for Ewha students, in commemoration of dropping the ban. However, both the events were canceled and apologies were delivered when the school sent written protests to the companies.

The head of the Office of Public Relations Lee Duk-gyu says, "The elimination of the marriage ban was carried out to provide educational opportunities for married women. But phenomena like the plans of marriage information companies are distorting the good intentions of the schoo"s decision."

The Student Government Association (SGA) also opposes such events, seeing them an indication that many in the marriage business look at Ewhaians as a product suddenly made available to them with the end of the marriage ban. The SGA made a statement on March 15 asking those companies to avoid such approaches.

The director of the Department of Women"s Affairs for the SGA, Lee Eun-joo (English Lang. & Lit., 2), says, "We, the Ewha SGA are against the idea of regardsing women only as the commercial product and the object of marriage.

"Even though we hope to have beautiful pictures for graduation photos, no one would feel good if she were evaluated as a marriage partner based on her appearance in an album. I joke that I"m in the "Post-it" part, but I wish people would no longer look at Ewhaians in that way," comments Kang.

Lee Duk-gyu adds, "We are, however, anticipating that some undergraduate students will be thinking about marriage during the school years. The school is planning to run counseling program for those students to help them out."

happydream83@ewha.ac.kr
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