Korea Now: Seoul Events, K-pop & Local Guide | NowHitz · 39

Two riders, two outfits

The pair was excavated from Geumnyeongchong Tomb in Gyeongju. The National Museum of Korea describes one rider as a master and the other as a servant.

Differences in scale, clothing and horse equipment offer clues to social rank and material culture in Silla.

A hollow body

A funnel at the rear leads into the hollow body, and a long spout projects from the chest. Tilting the vessel lets liquid run out.

A National Museum of Korea and EBS video uses the actual object and X-ray imagery to explain the design.

Four chapters, about 140 works

The show moves through four chapters—language, logic and action; objects and language; mapping and measurement; and coordinators of signs—to reread conceptual practice in Korean contemporary art. About 140 works and archival materials are on view.

Visitor information

The exhibition runs through October 11 in B1 Galleries 6 and 7 and the Museum Yard at MMCA Seoul. The official exhibition page lists admission at KRW 2,000. Same-day operating notices are posted on the official page.

What the 50,000 covers

The count covers October 6–10 and includes outdoor Open Talks, stage greetings and Talk-to-Talk sessions as well as indoor Cine Classes and Actors’ House events. It is separate from total screening admissions.

The release does not say whether people who attended several events were counted once.

Talk-to-Talk, Oct. 12–14

The Korean-language Talk-to-Talk series at Hanmac Smooth Lounge features Kim Guk-hee at 14:00 and Kim Jae-chul at 17:00 on October 12, and Gong Min-jeung at 14:00 and Park Ji-yeon at 16:00 on October 13.

Im Sung-jae appears at 16:00 and Kim Jun-han at 17:00 on October 14. Each conversation is scheduled for 30 minutes. All times are Korea Standard Time.

Shim Eun-kyung, Oct. 14

Shim will discuss her experience working in Korea and Japan from 19:00 to 20:00. The Korean-language session is in the fourth-floor Book Cafe Lounge at Dongseo University–Kyungnam College of Information & Technology’s Centum Campus. Tickets are KRW 10,000 under booking code 826.

Seating is unassigned, parking is not provided and only water in a capped bottle may be brought in. Availability and changes are posted by the official ticket service.

Red Thread screenings canceled

The film, withdrawn over a technical problem, has had its general screenings on October 12 at 15:30 (code 510) and October 13 at 10:00 (code 633) canceled. BIFF says those bookings are canceled automatically with full refunds.

The October 9, 23:59 Midnight Passion 2 slot (code 168) was replaced with Spirit Guardians: The Last Secret of The First Emperor, The Scar-Faced Cat: Way of Asura and L’Autre, with a full refund after the screening. Whether individual refunds have been paid was not confirmed.

Earlier schedule changes

Shin Min-a’s October 10 Actors’ House (code 806), at the ninth-floor Culture Hall in Shinsegae Centum City, was moved to 16:30–17:30 from 17:00–18:00.

For The Fire Within You, the October 10, 10:00 slot (code 273) and October 11, 15:30 slot (code 369) lost their audience Q&As, not their screenings.

Runs through Oct. 15

The 31st edition opened at 18:00 on October 6 at the Busan Cinema Center Roof Theater with its ceremony and The Table: Day and Night. The official overview lists 316 films: 247 official selections from 59 countries and 69 Community BIFF titles.

That programme size and the event-attendance figure measure different things. Changes for the remaining days are posted in festival notices.

Five days at five sites

Performances, exhibitions, hands-on activities and historical reenactments are spread across the four palaces and Jongmyo. Walk-in programs such as Royal Palace Playroom run alongside programs that require advance reservations.

Royal Palace Playroom, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.

Royal Palace Playroom runs as a walk-in program at Nakseonjae Hall in Changdeokgung from October 7 to 11, with a lunch break from 12:30 to 1 p.m. It is open to all ages and free, though palace admission is charged separately.

Each person may take part once. The program may close early if supplies run out and may be scaled back or canceled if rain is forecast during operating hours.

Title and theme

The title comes from the final line of Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem Archaic Torso of Apollo. The Biennale treats change as an ongoing practice shaped by repetition, perception and relationships rather than a single decision.

Hours and closures

The main exhibition is at the Gwangju Biennale Exhibition Hall through November 15, open 10:00 to 18:00. It is closed Mondays, though the official guide lists September 7 and October 5 as special open Mondays.

How the ticket was made

The company said staff had not seen the film and designed the ticket from a limited set of images supplied after consultation with the distributor and production company. The remaining free collector tickets will be discarded.

Stricter review ahead

Megabox said future merchandise tied to real historical events or figures will get closer social and ethical review. The video shown is the film’s official main trailer from the distributor’s channel.

Scams using leaked details

The FSC warned that scammers may use leaked names, addresses and other details to pose as offers of low-rate loans, refinancing or compensation for the leaks. Authorities and financial firms do not ask for passwords, authentication codes or transfers for compensation or account protection, and do not require prepayments or app installation for a loan.

Customers should not click unclear links in text messages and should verify through official websites, apps or customer-service numbers.

One-month response from Oct 6

Regulators designated one month from October 6 as a special response period for secondary harm from personal-data leaks, with an extension possible if needed.

The affected firms will run dedicated customer desks, and fraud-detection systems (FDS) will step up monitoring of transactions that combine leaked data. Suspicious information will be shared quickly through the ASAP anti-phishing AI platform.

Losses confirmed so far

As of its October 6 consumer alert, the FSC said it had not confirmed any case of customer funds lost through voice phishing or other scams tied to these data leaks. It said the risk of harm cannot be ruled out and urged continued caution.

A coin-shaped ticket

A bus token looked like a small coin but worked as a prepaid bus ticket. Passengers bought tokens at sales outlets, carried them and handed one over as the fare. Unlike money, it paid only for a specified transport service.

Paper coupon tickets were another option, bought in sets and handed over one per ride. Getting to school or work meant checking for tickets as well as cash.

1977 and the bus conductors

Seoul introduced bus tokens in 1977, when conductors on board helped passengers on and off and collected fares. Tokens cut the need to count out change on a moving bus.

Seoul’s museum and municipal histories also cite another reason: women conductors accused of pocketing fares were subjected to abusive body searches. The stated aim does not mean those abuses ended at once.

Student and ordinary fares

The Seoul Urban Life Museum says early ordinary-fare tokens were yellowish brass, while student tokens were made of a silvery alloy known as nickel silver. The type of token marked the fare category.

In Seoul, paper coupon tickets replaced student tokens in May 1979. There were initially separate coupons for elementary pupils, secondary pupils and university students, but university coupons were dropped in 1990, and university students began paying the ordinary fare.

Cities had their own histories

Seoul’s dates are Seoul’s history, not a national timeline. Other cities also used tokens and paper tickets. In July 2026, Busan’s city government announced a bus-history exhibition featuring its local tokens and coupon tickets.

That similar tickets existed in different cities does not mean passengers could use one city’s token in another.

Transit cards and Tmoney

Transit cards appeared in Seoul in 1996, and tokens were abolished there in 1999, so the shift to today’s Tmoney did not happen overnight. Tmoney’s own history dates the launch of Seoul’s new transit-card system to July 2004, followed by metropolitan integrated-fare settlement in July 2007.

More than the material changed. Electronic records allowed the system to link journeys and calculate fares across transport services.

From token to card

A token was surrendered for one ride; a rechargeable card holds a balance and can be topped up and reused. In an integrated fare system, recorded journeys also feed into the fare.

Tokens and paper tickets in museums preserve an older routine of buying tickets in advance, carrying them and taking one out to board. Paying with a card or phone today grew out of those changes in objects and institutions.

Hours and venue

The show is open 10 a.m.–6 p.m. on October 6 and 7, and 10 a.m.–4:30 p.m. on October 8. The exhibition is in COEX Hall B, with forums and business programs in conference rooms 301 and 307.

Four zones

Seoul organized the floor into four zones: Innovation, Robot in Seoul, Robot Challenge and Entertainment. Beyond humanoids, exhibits cover patrol, delivery, food-service, disaster-response, public-safety and wearable robots tied to city services.