Korea as a multicultural society and problems to be solved

Introduction
Korea has been one of the homogenous countries. Korean people are not really accustomed to living with foreign culture except Chinese culture. However, after Korean war(1950-1953), U.S military was deployed in Korea. Since then, the first international marriage began to appear. Usually, American soldiers married Korean women and they lived near military bases. This type of international marriage had been the most cases until 1970s. In 1980s, Korean economy grew at a surprising pace which led foreigners into Korea. Also, Korean workers advanced abroad. In this period, the male who had professional jobs marrying Korean woman was a most usual type of international marriages. Since 1990s, it has been hard for males living in conturyside to marry. As a result, they chose international marriages with female partners who are usually Korean descendents linving in China, Russia and other Central Asian countries. Women from Southeast Asian countries are also main partners for males in countryside. Furthermore, in 1995, Korean government imposed strict control on foreigners visiting Korea which forced foreigners to choose marriage as a way of coming to Korea and get a job. This trends is continuing now especially after 2002. According to the statistics by Korea Immigration Service which belongs to Ministry of Justice, the number of foreigners in Korea is 1,180,598(2010, March) which accounts for about 2.5% of Korean population and it is on the rapid increase. Therefore, as other earlier countries which experienced multiethnic conflicts, Korea has come to have social problems caused by increasing foreign populations and Korean government is looking for solutions to become desirable multicultural country.