On My Way To Korea

Being directed by my favorite K-director (임권택) and starting my favorite K-actor (안성기), I absolutely had to watch Festival (축제).  It all revolves around a grandmother who passes away and the ceremony which follows.  Festival looks at what death means to those around the deceased and how they have influenced everything around them.  If you’re interested in Korean culture, this is a must see.  It serves a dual purpose of showing what a Korean funeral service looks like and the meaning surrounding it and the culture around the younger caring for the elderly.  It also briefly touches on how the modern culture is changing and the younger don’t care for the elderly as much as they used to.

Here’s a collection of clips I extracted dealing just with the funeral:

For those interested, here’s a website which explains a little about some more things.

I couldn’t resist taking a pic of this one.

Incredibly short, but also incredibly sad.

Source: Washington Post

There’s some software created for SNU students to plan out their courses for the semester.  I found a nice little tutorial in English about how to use it (see it here).  It’s cool that the tutorial is out there, but what about the fact that when I install SNUTime on Windows which isn’t the Korean version (although I have Korean support installed and other Korean apps work) the Korean words never are shown correctly.  With NateOn, I get the same thing but only during installation.  After install, I can use the app fine and see all the Korean characters.  With SNUTime the character problems persist after instillation.

So, anyone out there know a way to get the characters to show up on Windows without having to install native-Korean Windows?

*UPDATE*

Thanks to ‘….’ for pointing me to: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/Change-the-system-locale

Just go there and change it to Korean (or some other language if you’re dealing with a different country).

Kind of SNUTime specific, but you also have to change the regional (time, etc.) settings to Korean.  I guess the programmer parses the string rather than the data structure? That’s the only possibility I can think of.  I have no idea why one would do that though.  If he/she reads this post I’d love to hear about that.

SNUTime seems like a pretty nifty app now that I can use it.  If you’re going to SNU definitely check it out.

Source: Chosun

Have you seen those mysterious covered boxes for the past (at least) two months?  They said they would debut in February and they finally have.  The “Digital View” terminals are internet phones (free to use) with subway, store and tourist information.  I have to say, they’re cool but not what I need/want.  Who else would much rather have a wifi system installed?  That would reach so many more users, plus there won’t ever be a line (though you would have to fight for bandwidth).