Wednesday-night curator talks at the National Museum of Korea — October, in Korean

The National Museum of Korea stays open until 9pm on Wednesdays and Saturdays. During the Wednesday late opening its curators and conservators come out into the galleries for 30-minute Curator Talks. October's programme puts talks in front of some of the museum's best-known objects — Silla gold, movable metal type, the Daedong Yeojido map, blue-and-white porcelain — alongside four talks by the conservation science department. An hour after work is enough for two of them.

What is the October schedule?

This is the timetable attached to the museum's press release, set out by date and time. The two talks that share a slot start together, so on any evening you can hear one at 6pm and one at 7pm.

What do the Silla gold and metal type talks cover?

The 6pm talk in the Silla Gallery on 21 October looks at gold crowns and belts as markers of rank — ornaments only the royal family and aristocracy could wear. A week earlier, at 6pm on the 14th in Joseon Gallery 3, a conservation scientist explains movable metal type in scientific terms: why printing the same characters again and again from cast type was so efficient for its time.

Where is the Daedong Yeojido talk?

The 6pm talk on 21 October, Korea through the Daedong Yeojido map, is held on the Path to History, the long central hall on the ground floor. The museum's press photos include the Daedong Yeojido on display there, so the talk takes place in front of the real thing, on how Kim Jeong-ho made the geography of the whole peninsula readable at a glance. It is given by a Children's Museum curator, so it suits families too.

For ceramics, go on 14 October

On the 14th two talks follow each other in the third-floor Sculpture and Crafts galleries. At 6pm, Looking at blue-and-white porcelain reads the pieces through their decoration and shape; at 7pm, How ceramics were made covers research into making techniques and how it has been used to restore damaged pieces. The 6pm slot clashes with the metal type talk, so you have to choose one.

What is on the first night, 7 October?

At 6pm on the first night, the Glass-plate photographs talk in the Korean Empire Gallery introduces the early photographic process that fixed images on glass before film, and the history those plates recorded. At 7pm, Goryeo Gallery 2 has a talk on Goryeo Buddhist art and craft from an art-historical angle.

Which talks are by conservators, and which are for children?

Four of this month's 16 talks are given by the conservation science department. If what interests you is what an object is made of and how, these four go well together.

• 14 Oct 6pm — The science of metal type, Joseon Gallery 3
• 14 Oct 7pm — How ceramics were made, Buncheong and Porcelain Galleries
• 28 Oct 6pm — Materials of Joseon painting (traditional pigments), Painting and Calligraphy Gallery 1
• 28 Oct 7pm — Pearls and leather of the Three Kingdoms (traces left on excavated objects), Gaya Gallery

The two Children's Museum talks are at 6pm on 7 October (a Joseon life-cycle screen) and 7pm on 28 October (cultural heritage on the dining table). The special exhibition Our Table closes on 25 October, so this month's three talks there are the last; the one on the 21st focuses on the kitchens and food of Goguryeo.

Getting there, and what works without Korean

Take Line 4 or the Gyeongui–Jungang Line to Ichon Station, leave by Exit 2 and follow the covered Museum Path walkway for about five minutes to the entrance; the subway is signed and announced in English. Inside, the permanent galleries are free and labelled in Korean and English, there is a paid audio guide at the entrance, and the information desk has English-speaking staff. The Curator Talks themselves are in Korean only, with no interpretation. That makes them background rather than the reason to come: on a talk night the permanent galleries stay open until 9pm (last entry 8:30pm) and are far quieter than at weekends, and the timetable above tells you which room will have a crowd around a speaker at 6 and 7. The museum also runs free English-language guided tours of the permanent galleries on its own timetable, listed on its tours page.