In South Korea People Pay to Watch Live Broadcasts of Other People Gorging on Food

I’m not sure why, but some of the strangest trends seem to emerge from South Korea. The latest one is dinner porn – people watching other people stuffing themselves with food. The Korean term for it is ‘mok-bang’, which roughly translates as ‘dinner broadcast’. The dinner porn stars of South Korea film themselves eating copious […]

Androgynous Male Model Understandably Mistaken for a Girl on Asian Websites

Weibo, the Chinese version of Twitter, is abuzz with photographs of 18-year-old Yiming Zhao. This beautiful young model and make-up artist captured the hearts of millions of Asian netizens. Unfortunately, their hearts broke when the truth was revealed to them – their dream girl is, in fact, a boy. Yes, Yiming might be effeminate, but […]

Real-Life Tarzans Found Living Deep in Vietnam’s Forests

40 years ago, during the Vietnam War, Ho Van Thanh was seen running into the woods with his then-infant son Ho Van Lang. They hadn’t been seen since, until a few days ago when two villagers accidentally stumbled upon their bamboo hut deep in the forests of Vietnam’s Quang Ngai province. No one imagined Ho Van Tranh […]

China’s Dead Sea – Probably the World’s Most Crowded Swimming Pool

If you think your local swimming pool becomes unbearably crowded on hot summer days, just check out these photos of the so-called Dead Sea, a salt-water swimming pool in China’s Daying County where thousands of people gather every weekend to escape the heat. Inspired by the real Dead Sea in the Middle East, the Chinese resort […]

The Dancing Inmates of the Philippines

The Cebu Provincial Detention and Rehabilitation Center, in the Philippines, has become internationally famous for using choreographed dancing to rehabilitate dangerous inmates. Videos of their dance routines have registered tens of millions of views on sites like YouTube, and the prison itself is now a tourist attraction of sorts. Prison life is tough everywhere – […]

Japanese Prosthetic Expert Makes Fake Fingers for Ex-Yakuza Members

Shintaro Hayashi, a prosthetics maker from Japan, is helping out former members of the Yakuza, or Japanese mob, by creating fake fingers they lost during their life of crime, so they can get normal jobs easier. The Yakuza organized crime syndicates are renowned for their strict codes of conduct and organized nature. When a member […]

The Ancient Art of Tibetan Butter Sculpting Is Melting Away

For the last 400 years, Tibetan monks have been using butter from yak milk to create large and intricate sculptures inspired by stories of Buddha, animals or plants and putting them on display during the annual Butter Lantern Festival. Unfortunately, the long and difficult process of making these exquisite works of art has led to a […]

Hari Kuyo – Japan’s Unique Memorial Service for Broken Needles

Hari Kuyo is a Japanese festival dedicated to old and broken needles. Celebrated every year on the 8th of February, this festival sees hundreds of women dressed in colorful kimonos, gathering at various Shinto shrines or Buddhist temples in and around Tokyo. This 400-year-old ritual involves sticking old and broken needles into soft chunks of […]

Kids Toughen Up at Brutal South Korean Winter Boot Camp

When the South Korean Army announces its biannual boot camp for civilians above the age of 13, there are lots of people who are more than happy to attend. Held at the command base in western Seoul, the 4 to 14 day camp offers basic military training to anyone able to pay the entry fee […]

World’s First Official Barbie Cafe Is as Pink as You’d Expect

As if Asians didn’t have enough pink in their lives, from all those crazy Hello-Kitty-themed venues, now there’s an official Barbie Cafe in Taipei, Taiwan. And yes, it has dolls, themed foods and more pink than most men can bare. January 30th witnessed the inauguration of the world’s first official Barbie Cafe, in one of […]

The Maeklong Railway Food Market – A Strange Wonder of Thailand

Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory loves trains, but I’m not too sure if he’d like this particular one. The Maeklong market railway passes right through the middle of a tightly packed market – so tight, that passengers can probably grab a few vegetables as they pass through. The market’s stalls are actually set […]