GAPYEONG, South Korea: Thousands of couples – some in facemasks – tied the knot in a mass Unification Church wedding on Friday, despite concerns in South Korea over the spread of the novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak. Couples wearing masks for protection from the new coronavirus, attend a mass wedding ceremony of the Unification Church at Cheongshim Peace World Centre in Gapyeong, South Korea, February 7, 2020. They began in the early 1960s, involving just a few dozen couples at first but with numbers mushrooming over the years. In 1997, 30,000 couples took part in a joint wedding in Washington, and two years later around 21,000 filled the Olympic Stadium in Seoul. Kim Chang-seong, 27, who was marrying a woman whom he met 20 days ago, said he was not concerned about infection because the mass wedding had “special meaning” for him.

Source: New Strait Times February 07, 2020 08:03 UTC