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Asia apps combine technology and tradition in dating game

Apps like Peekawoo, Grouvly and Paktor make it easier for singletons to meet strangers safely

Hong Kong

MOVE over, Tinder - a crop of dating apps in smartphone-addicted Asia is offering to recruit friends for group dates or send along a chaperone to steer the course of romance.

While dating apps developed in the West encourage one-on-one, often no-strings-attached meetings, many in Asia are as much about old-school courtship or friendship in a region where meeting a stranger in a bar can still be a taboo.

"My upbringing was very close to my parents, religious, traditional and old-fashioned. You couldn't go on dates if your parents didn't know the guy," said Valenice Balace, who developed the Peekawoo service in the Philippines two years ago.

"I grew up with chaperoned dates and even when...

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