Han Seol-hyang blushes as she recounts her memories of teenage dating in Pyongyang.
韩雪香(Han Seol-hyang，音)讲述起自己十几岁时在平壤约会的往事，她的脸红了。
“Everything was in secret. It wasn’t all out in the open like in South Korea,” says the 30-year-old daughter of a North Korean government official. “It wasn’t that we were scared of being punished; that was just the culture.”
韩雪香今年30岁，是一位朝鲜政府官员的女儿，她说：“一切都得保密，不像在韩国这么开放。倒不是说害怕受处罚，而是文化使然。”

South Korea’s brash dating scene is one of a bewildering range of cultural differences confronting more than 25,000 North Koreans who have made their way south over the past 20 years, with many struggling to integrate socially and economically.
过去20年逃往韩国的朝鲜人超过2.5万人，他们面临着各种令人无所适从的文化差异，令许多人无论从经济上还是从社会上都难以融入韩国，大胆的约会场面便是其中之一。
But Ms Han and 51-year-old Kim Min-jeong, her business partner, have turned the situation to their advantage by establishing Eve, a matchmaking agency aimed at helping fellow North Korean refugees find husbands.
但韩雪香和她的生意伙伴——51岁的金敏贞(Kim Min-jeong，音)将这一文化差异化作她们的优势，俩人合作创建了婚介机构Eve，旨在帮助朝鲜难民同胞找到如意郎君。
On the wall of their office in a western district of Seoul is a whiteboard listing a dozen meetings arranged for the next few days between women born in North Korea and South Korean men. The dates of two imminent marriages and an expected birth are noted in red.
Eve位于首尔西部某区，办公室的墙上挂着一面白板，上面列出了未来数日安排好的十几场约会，女方都是朝鲜人，而男方都是韩国人。其中有三个标红的日期，分别是马上要举行的两场婚礼，以及一个预产期。
Next to a large framed photograph of one of the weddings they have helped to bring about — there were 29 last year alone — one of their 10 employees is explaining the service to a shy-looking man on the threshold of middle age.
这家婚介所有10名员工，其中一个员工正向一位面露羞色、即将迈入中年的男士介绍服务项目。他们身边的墙上挂着一个大相框，里面是Eve促成的一场婚礼的照片，仅去年这家婚介所就促成了29桩婚事。
Eve promises to arrange up to six introductions for each man within the first year, with further dates to follow if he remains single after that time. About 200 men paid Won2-3m ($1,788-2,667) last year to register at Eve; more than double that number of female North Korean defectors signed up at no cost.
Eve承诺每位男士在第一年内最多可相亲6次，如果一年后该男士仍为单身，还可为他安排更多约会。去年约有200名男士在Eve注册，注册费在200万韩元到300万韩元之间（约合1788美元到2667美元），女性会员都是脱北者，去年她们的注册人数是男性会员的两倍以上，无须缴纳注册费用。
Seated on adjacent leather armchairs, both sporting white shirts, miniskirts and auburn-tinted hair, Ms Han and Ms Kim explain how they help clients to bridge the inter-Korean cultural divide.
韩雪香和金敏贞挨着坐在皮革扶手椅上，两人都穿着白衬衫，迷你裙，头发染成茶褐色。她们介绍了自己如何帮助客户跨越朝韩之间的文化鸿沟。
“The North Korean women are like 60-somethings in South Korea; they’re very conservative,” Ms Kim says. “So I tell the men to take things slow. If you grab her hand on the first date, it will scare her.”
金敏贞说：“朝鲜女性的思想相当于韩国60多岁的人，她们非常保守。因此我告诉男士们要慢慢来。如果你第一次约会时就牵她的手，会吓到她的。”
Ms Kim plays down the difficulties of becoming an entrepreneur in a dynamic capitalist economy after spending her first four decades in one of the last socialist states. She thinks she gained useful skills from working for 20 years in a regional accounts department of a state-owned restaurant company, before emigrating in 2005.
金敏贞人生的头四十年是在社会主义国家度过的，之后她又在这个充满活力的资本主义国家里成了一名企业家，她并不认为这有多不容易。2005年金敏贞从朝鲜来到韩国，此前她在一家国有餐饮公司的分区会计部工作了20年，她认为自己从中获得了有用的技能。
Ms Han had left North Korea two years before at the age of 18, having felt isolated, like “a frog in a pond”, after spending hours watching television footage of the outside world. They met in 2007, when both were working at a Seoul matchmaking agency. But in 2008 the two women decided to go it alone. They used their modest savings to put down a Won10m deposit for a rented office and lured a few male clients from their previous employer.
韩雪香比她早两年离开朝鲜，当时18岁，在连续看了几个小时外面世界的电视后，她觉得自己与世隔绝，像只“池塘里的青蛙”。她与金敏贞相识于2007年，当时她们在首尔一家婚介所工作。2008年两位女性决定出来单干。她们用微薄的积蓄缴纳了1000万韩元定金，租下一间办公室，还从前雇主那儿挖走了几个男客户。
Eve has attracted only one male North Korean client and no South Korean women. The lopsided gender mix reflects the fact that North Korean refugees earn a third less than the South Korean average. In one 2013 survey, all the women polled said they disliked the idea of marrying a defector. But 69 per cent of the men said they would, reflecting North Korean women’s reputation for being “docile and submissive”, according to Ms Han.
Eve的客户里只有一位朝鲜男性，没有韩国女性。这种极不平衡的性别结构反应出一个事实，朝鲜难民的收入不抵韩国人平均收入的三分之一。在2013年一份调查中，所有女性受访者均表示她们无法接受嫁给一个叛逃者。但69%的男性受访者表示他们愿意娶一名叛逃者，据韩雪香说，这反映了朝鲜女性“温顺”的美名在外。
This has led critics to accuse Eve and similar agencies of exploitation. Ms Han counters that the service can help female defectors integrate in the face of prejudice, recalling how she nervously pretended as a student to be from the north of South Korea.
批评者因此指责Eve之类的机构利用脱北女性。韩雪香反驳说，她们的服务可以帮助女性脱北者在面对偏见的情况下融入当地社会。她回想起自己当初如何紧张地装成一个来自韩国北部的学生。
The troubles faced by North Korean defectors are an ominous sign of the challenge that Seoul will face in dealing with a greater influx, should Korea reunify. In the meantime, Ms Han adds, “we are doing our own version of unification”.
脱北者面临的麻烦预示着首尔可能面临的挑战，如果朝鲜半岛真的统一，那么韩国将迎来更庞大的移民潮。与此同时，韩雪香说，“我们正在进行我们自己的统一事业”。