kangmi: learning korean

Notice that the mainland Chinese form is 首尔 in the simplified characters, which you can also see in the Chinese-language homepage of the Seoul metropolitan government. Korean papers or sites always seem to have the characters in the unsimplified form even when talking about Chinese language and mainland Chinese words, as in 漢城 instead of 汉城.

So there would actually be two official versions, the simplified and the unsimplified?

I guess it'd be two official versions as there are the two sets of Chinese characters, the simplified and traditional. Or perhaps it should be thought of as a one and the same form with two different ways to write the character. As you'd see from the Chinese page of Seoul, it's written according to the mainland standard, so the simplified form 首尔 is used. And were the Taiwanese to start using "Shouer", they'd write it as 首爾, which would be as correct.
It'd depend on what set of characters was used.

As you might know, in the mainland of China, the simplified is official character. However in Taiwan, Japan, and Korea, the unsimplified form has been widely and publicly educated. Originally the unsimplified form came from the mainland of China, long, long time ago though. When Korean people learn the Chinese character, of course the unsimplified form, we also learn that it came from the mainland of China. Before building an official relationship with the mainland of China, moreover, Taiwan had solely reflected all things related Chinese, such as culture and language. There had been no problem to learn Chinese character among Korean people. Because their character-set, the unsimplified form, was exactly the same as ours. Even after the establishment of the official relationship between Korea and China, most Koreans still have no idea that Chinese people in the mainland of China use the simplified form. Only the people who major in the mainland Chinese language know it. Some allegedly say that because the unsimplified form is too complex, the chinese government decided to have the simplified form official.
That is the reason why Korean newspapers and sites including the general public keep using or writing the unsimplified form when talking about Chinese related issues. And even in the mainland, the unsimplified form reads well.

Looks like the admin of KoreanBlog had visited you on the same day too (on 24th Jan) !

I followed the trackback link and entered the competition. As a result, yesterday I won a Samsung MP3 player and Gordsellar won a Cultural cheque.