Life & Arts

Ken Hom's unlikely journey from kitchen helper in Chicago's Chinatown to globe-trotting celebrity chef is recounted with wit and humor in his book “My Stir-Fried Life,” which is now reaching Asian readers through translations in Thai and Mandarin.
Life

The 'stir-fried life' of top chef Ken Hom

The man who brought Chinese cooking to UK television marks five-decade career

22 October 2021
Health workers wait to administer COVID-19 swab tests to travelers at the airport on the Thai resort island of Phuket on July 1. 
Tea Leaves

Back on the beach in Thailand's model 'sandbox'

Ring-fencing of resort island shows possible way forward for tourism

20 October 2021
Popular Thai vlogger Natthawadee "Suzie" Waikalo, who has a Thai mother and an African father, says Thais with an African or African American parent generally face greater discrimination. (From Natthawadee "Suzie" Waikalo's Facebook page)
Life

Asia's biracial children face challenge and opportunity

Prejudice remains widespread but global antiracist movements have helped

20 October 2021
Former U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell shares a joke with Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi at Koizumi's official residence in Tokyo, on July 19, 2005. 
Obituaries

Colin Powell, last of the battle-hardened diplomats

Washington mourns the passing of warrior and statesman

20 October 2021
Detail of a poster for the movie "Seperti Dendam, Rindu Harus Dibayar Tuntas" ("Vengeance is Mine, All Others Pay Cash"). Shot using vibrant 16 mm film, the movie is a mashup of classic vintage genres, ranging in style from Hong Kong martial arts flicks to Indonesian horror films to American juvenile delinquent B-movies. (Courtesy of the Match Factory)
Arts

Fistfights and impotence recall Indonesia's troubled history

Pulp film exploring patriarchal society draws international plaudits

18 October 2021
The title “Essential Desires” encapsulates some of the book’s aims: to resist fixed, essentialist definitions of Thai art and to review the many artistic desires and impulses that have underpinned it since the 1990s. (Nikkei montage/Source photos courtesy of Reaktion Books and Michael Shaowanasai, left, and, right, Vasan Sitthiket’s 2005 video installation “Are You Thai or Not?”, courtesy of the artist)
Arts

Book review: 'Essential Desires' chronicles emergence of Thai contemporary art

Brian Curtin's illustrated survey traces internationalization and internal divisions

15 October 2021
Afghan girls play Cricket in Kandahar, the former Taliban stronghold and the birthplace of Taliban's spiritual leader late Mullah Omar, ahead of World Women Day in March 2018. 
Tea Leaves

How the Taliban have divided the cricket world

Ban on women's matches threatens men's tour of Australia

13 October 2021
Two new books -- "The Struggle for India's Soul" by Shashi Tharoor and "Modi's India" by Christophe Jaffrelot -- examine the rise of Hindu nationalism and of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and their impact on the world's largest democracy.
Arts

Book review: Lament for India's descent into authoritarianism

Modi's ethnic nationalism threatens to deepen divisions in the subcontinent

13 October 2021
In his newly published 530-page memoir, former Bank of Japan Gov. Masaaki Shirakawa makes it clear that when it comes to the economy, he thinks we are all going to hell in a handbasket. (Nikkei montage/Source photos by Yale University Press, Reuters)
Arts

Book review: Shirakawa, the last shogun of hard money

Memoir by former Bank of Japan governor warns of financial crisis ahead

11 October 2021
While male-male romance might be taboo, danmei fiction, movies and web series offer Chinese women a place to escape the male gaze and forget about the duties expected of them in China's deeply patriarchal society.
Arts

Why Chinese women are falling for 'boys love' fiction

Fiction written by straight women, for straight women, has Beijing worried

9 October 2021
A dabbawala, or lunchbox deliveryman, balances his cargo in Mumbai in pre-pandemic times. These traditional deliverymen have been distributing lunchboxes to thousands of people across the city every day since 1890, but COVID-19 has dealt a huge blow to business, forcing many to seek work elsewhere. (Getty Images)
Life

Mumbai's 'dabbawalas' go digital to beat COVID-19

Indian lunchbox deliverers are fast adopting technology to stay in business

8 October 2021
Then-Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, fourth left, French President France Emmanuel Macron, second left, stand on the submarine HMAS Waller in Sydney in May 2018. 
Tea Leaves

Reflections on the French connection down under

Submarine debacle takes Australia-France relations into troubled waters, despite cultural and historical ties

6 October 2021
Detail of "2021 Burma" by Yarzar Myo. Since the Feb. 1 military takeover, Myanmar has seen an outpouring of artistic expression among both seasoned professionals and young artists who oppose the new regime. (Courtesy of the artist)
Arts

Myanmar artists draw on creative arsenal

Protest art goes underground as opposition steps up 'war' on military regime

6 October 2021
Huang Xi, pictured here in Guangzhou, is the founder of mainland China’s only nonprofit organization offering psychological counseling to transgender people. She came out as a transgender woman to her mother and long-term girlfriend in 2017. (Courtesy Huang Xi) 
Life

Breaking down China's transgender barriers

Nonbinary counselor seeks major changes in law and culture

4 October 2021
Field-grown Queen Rouge grapes left for Tokyo and elsewhere on Sept. 27. (Photo by Shuhei Hatakeyama)
Agriculture

Japan's Queen Rouge brings sweeter, luxury twist to grapes

Nagano Prefecture eyes exports as new variety ships

4 October 2021
A bartender mixes an arak cocktail at Karma Kandara Bali, a luxury resort and beach club on the island's Bukit Peninsula. (Ian Neubauer)
Life

Reinventing an ancient spirit with a bad reputation

In Bali, Indonesia's traditional 'arak' liquor is moving upmarket

1 October 2021
A cicada shell is seen on a tree in Tokyo on Aug. 11. The loud, distinctive songs of these bugs are indelible symbols of summer in Japan.
Tea Leaves

Japan's summer sounds reverberate across imagination

Amid rain and virus anxiety, sonic ambience offers unexpected pleasures

29 September 2021
Rivals Skeletor, left, and He-Man from the "Masters of the Universe" comic-book and animation series are reimagined as wayang kulit traditional Malay shadow puppet characters by the Fusion Wayang Kulit puppeteer group. (Courtesy of Fusion Wayang Kulit)
Arts

He-Man joins fight to save Malay shadow puppets

Western and Japanese characters take traditional art form into 21st century and beyond

29 September 2021
The Philippines is the first country to green light commercial production of genetically modified Golden Rice, right.
Agriculture

Philippines stirs controversy with genetically modified rice

Critics take aim at nutrient-enriched Golden Rice, but government says it is safe

27 September 2021
"I hope the library will become a base for the transmission of new culture," Murakami told a press conference ahead of the opening of the Waseda International House of Literature (The Haruki Murakami Library) next week. (Photo by Ken Kobayashi)
Arts

New library tunnels into the world of Haruki Murakami

Facility funded by Uniqlo owner Tadashi Yanai and designed by Kengo Kuma

25 September 2021
"Mandala-Q," an artwork by Mirai Mizue, is currently showing in the International Terminal at Fukuoka Airport. It is part of a Japanese government-backed push to promote artwork through the country's airports. (Screenshot from "Culture Gate to Japan" website)  
Arts

Japan boosts global art-hub ambitions

Government and private sector view culture as a growth industry

24 September 2021
In her latest book, "Eat the Buddha," Barbara Demick gives a human face and an intense sense of personal travail to one of Asia's most intractable injustices. (Nikkei montage; Cover image from Random House, author photo by Madeleine Grant) 
Arts

Book Review: Lessons in life and death from small-town Tibetans

Barbara Demick's 'Eat the Buddha' highlights personal impact of Chinese rule

22 September 2021
Indian students wear Japanese kimono during an event organized by the India-Japan Initiative in Mumbai in April 2005. In order to better understand the world, we need cross-cultural perspectives.
Tea Leaves

The positive side of 'cultural appropriation'

Instead of being condemned, cross-cultural perspectives should be embraced

22 September 2021
Hideki "Yoda" Suematsu, Takaakira "Taka" Goto, and Tamaki Kunishi of the Tokyo-based Instrumental Rock band MONO. The band's 11th studio album "Pilgrimage of the Soul" was released on September 17. (Photo by Ken Kobayashi)
Arts

20-year pilgrimage of the soul: MONO's requiem for a pandemic

Tokyo group's new album takes their classic-infused noise rock to the next level

21 September 2021
A pillbox built by the Japanese army on a British-made artillery observation post commands a sweeping view of Hong Kong's Victoria Harbour. (Takeshi Kihara)
Life

Race to save Hong Kong's wartime relics

Growing interest spurs new interest in region's World War II heritage sites

17 September 2021