Twelve men and 12 women enter a Buddhist temple - will the monks help them find love?

Image source, BBC/ Hosu Lee By Jake Kwon Seoul correspondent , Reporting from Donghwasa Temple Published 39 minutes ago A monk draped in burnt-orange robes faces a row of young men and women and tells them they're here on a mission to save their country. By finding a partner and one day having babies. The participants giggle, nervously stealing glances from their prospective matches. This isn't the start of a new hit reality show. It's a real-life dating retreat held at an 8th Century Buddhist temple nestled in the lush greenery of South Korea's Palgongsan mountain. It's a 30-hour affair which will feature back-to-back activities and a steady stream of awkward moments, all in the pursuit of breaking the ice and finding love. "Buddhists have always been the first to take action when our country is in trouble," says host Yoo Cheol-ju, referring to when Donghwasa Temple served as a camp for monk militias defending Korea against Japanese invaders in the 1500s. But this time the threat isn't from abroad. "Low births are a national crisis. We had to do something about it," Yoo says. To play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser. This video can not be played Figure caption, Watch: How are monks helping South Korean singles find love? Like elsewhere in the world, births have plummeted in South Korea as the country has grown wealthier. In 2023, the average number of children a South Korean woman has over her lifetime, or total fertility rate, dropped to a historic low of 0.72, well below the replacement rate of 2.1. Some blame soaring housing costs and the lack of financial support for childcare. Others say women are prioritising careers, or simply exercising what is now a choice. But young South Koreans are also going out less and dating less than before, studies show. While some are choosing to be single, many are struggling to meet partners, pulling marriage rates down. The government has begun offering longer parental leave, cash bonuses for babies and subsidised apartments for newlyweds. Local governments and civic groups have taken things one step further, putting on state-backed matchmaking events like this one at Donghwasa Temple. And they're a lot more fun than you might imagine. Image source, BBC/ Hosu Lee Image caption, The temple is surrounded by serene greenery Image source, BBC/ Hosu Lee Image caption, The participants, who have been selected from a pool of 1,600, nervously await the day's activities Kim Ah-kyung, who goes by her Buddhist name, Sunhyeji, is one of the first to arrive. The bubbly 28-year-old sits on the porch of a bungalow at the temple complex and says hello to the other women, who start trickling into the room. They have all made it through an incredibly competitive selection process, involving questionnaires and selfie videos to assess how serious they are about marriage and kids. They beat more than 1,580 others to be at this retreat, which was open to everyone, irrespective of faith. Sunhyeji struggle