The Royal Asiatic Society’s Korea Branch is holding a book sale for its members until Feb. 29.Twenty books on Korean history and culture are available in the sale, with discounts of 50 percent or more. Some books are available for free with orders of 30,000 won or more. Other books not in the sale are also available from RASKB’s online bookshop.Orders can be collected from the society’s Jongno office or received by mail. Overseas mailing is available. For a complete list of the books available a

Funnyman Danny Cho is back in Korea, and has two shows this weekend for local comedy fans.Returning after a tour last summer, Cho will join Stand-up Seoul at the Rocky Mountain Tavern in Itaewon on Friday. On Saturday he will play at nearby King Club in “Funkin’ Funny,” a night of comedy and music with Pinnacle TheHustler and DJ Tom Slick.Cho told the Korea Herald that he came to Korea mainly for vacation, celebrating New Year’s Eve in Seoul with his friends Far East Movement. He said that on th

Auditions are being held this Saturday and Sunday for this year’s V-Day performances of the “Vagina Monologues” in Busan.The performances will be on April 28 and 29. V-Day is a charity event that raises money for women’s charities. This year’s proceeds will go to a local women’s shelter and Women and Girls of Haiti.The performances have proved very popular, and an additional one has been added as some people were turned away last year.Time slots for would-be performers are available between 11 a

The Seoul Global Center will accept applications for its spring course of free Korea language classes on Jan. 11 and 12.The classes take place in the center’s conference room and run from Feb. 6 to April 27. There are eight levels, starting with the very basics of learning the alphabet. Classes meet twice a week in the morning or evening, depending on the level.Classes are free, but students have to buy their textbooks.Applicants should visit the center in person and bring their Alien Registrati

The Free Shuttle Bus Service for foreign tourists between Seoul and Busan will get an extended run until the end of 2012. Another service, to Jeonju, has had its capacity increased, but the free bus to Gyeongju will no longer be provided. Services start Wednesday, following a short year-end break.The schedule and drop-off points on the Busan route have changed. The route will run to and from Busan Lotte Hotel, but no longer go to Haeundae Paradise Hotel. Buses leave Seoul from in front of Gwangh

JOHANNESBURG (AFP) ― Yellowed cover pages of South Africa’s iconic Drum magazine evoke a 1950s black fashion and jazz culture which perished when apartheid forces razed Sophiatown, a racially-mixed Johannesburg suburb.This year Drum turned 60 and even today South Africans link the magazine to Sophiatown, a restless and vibrant suburb which was home to blacks, coloureds, Indians and Chinese.Between 1955 and 1960, residents were forcibly removed and relocated to townships outside Johannesburg beca

CHARLESTON, South Carolina (AP) ― The American premiere of the Philip Glass opera “Kepler,’’ a concert by vocalist k.d. lang, and the return of Dublin’s Gate Theatre highlight the 36th season of the Spoleto Festival USA this spring.Chamber music, acrobatic performances and orchestral concerts are also on the schedule for the festival that will light up 13 venues including theaters, churches and open-air sites from May 25 through June 10.The festival, which released the lineup this weekend, featu

WASHINGTON (AFP) ― Bookshelves groaning under the weight of every issue of American Vogue ever published since December 17, 1892, and there have been about 2,800 of them, can now heave a sigh of relief.Two years in the making, an online Vogue Archive is being pitched to fashion designers, photographers and stylists for whom rummaging through musty back issues for inspiration is an everyday part of the job.“That’s about 400,000 pages. It’s everything,” said Matt Dellinger, a writer and multimedia