No more elephant and monkey acts. No more death-defying motorbike stunts. No more singing or acting on stage.Several hundred spectators still clapped constantly when acrobats with Dongchoon Circus Troupe, South Korea’s last and 100-year-old circus, twirled on a long suspended fabric, juggled clubs o
The wide-screen spectacle of Formula One gets a gleaming, rip-roaring workout in Joseph Kosinski’s F1, a fine-tuned machine of a movie that, in its most riveting racing scenes, approaches a kind of high-speed splendor.Kosinski, who last endeavored to put moviegoers in the seat of a fighter jet in To
K-pop megaband BTS is back from military service, and their international fandom — long known for its progressive activism — is celebrating by rallying behind a cause: adoptees from South Korea.Now Asia’s fourth-largest economy and a global cultural powerhouse, the idols’ native South Korea remains
There is an old British curse, “may you live in interesting times,” passed off as ancient Chinese wisdom to make it sound more exotic and profound.We are living in interesting times. From US President Donald Trump’s decision on American tariffs, to how the recalls will play out, to uncertainty about
Chinese medical office worker Qin Meng has found a lucrative side-hustle: she wakes up before midnight, fills in her clients’ divorce certificate applications on a government website, then hits the confirm button exactly at the top of the hour.Miss it by seconds and the daily slots are “gone in the
In 2014, a group of researchers from Harvard University and the University of Virginia asked people to sit alone with their thoughts for 15 minutes. The only available diversion was a button that delivered a painful electric shock. Almost half of the participants pressed it. One man pressed the butt
If male baboons were subject to the same kind of cultural commentary as humans, the phrase “deadbeat dads” might be called for, such is the primate’s relatively limited involvement in raising their young.But a study suggests that even their little effort might go a long way, with female baboons who
When Taiwan’s geopolitical significance is emphasized in media and books, the focus is usually on its indispensability to the global supply of semiconductors.Many recent books also stress the importance of supporting a democracy that shares values with the so-called international community, but this
It took years for Zehra Murguz to be able to testify about what happened to her and other Muslim women in the “rape camps” run by Serb forces during the war in Bosnia.One of the awful memories that drove her to give evidence was of seeing a girl of 12 “with a doll in her arms” dragged into one of th
A group of tourists were sitting at an outdoor table in the Spanish city of Barcelona, trying to enjoy their drinks, when a woman raised a cheap plastic water gun and shot an arc of water at them.Her weapon of choice — the cheap, squirt-squirt variety — is an increasingly common fixture at anti-tour
Desperate dads meet in car parks to exchange packets; exhausted parents slip it into their kids’ drinks; families wait months for prescriptions buy it “off label.” But is it worth the risk? “The first time I gave him a gummy, I thought, ‘Oh my God, have I killed him?’ He just passed out in front of
The canonical shot of an East Asian city is a night skyline studded with towering apartment and office buildings, bright with neon and plastic signage, a landscape of energy and modernity. Another classic image is the same city seen from above, in which identical apartment towers march across the ci
June 16 to June 22 The following flyer appeared on the streets of Hsinchu on June 12, 1895: “Taipei has already fallen to the Japanese barbarians, who have brought great misery to our land and people. We heard that the Japanese occupiers will tax our gardens, our houses, our bodies, and even our chi
This is a deeply unsettling period in Taiwan. Uncertainties are everywhere while everyone waits for a small army of other shoes to drop on nearly every front. During challenging times, interesting political changes can happen, yet all three major political parties are beset with scandals, strife and
When Lisa, 20, laces into her ultra-high heels for her shift at a strip club in Ukraine’s Kharkiv, she knows that aside from dancing, she will have to comfort traumatized soldiers.Since Russia’s 2022 invasion, exhausted troops are the main clientele of the Flash Dancers club in the center of the nor
It was just before 6am on a sunny November morning and I could hardly contain my excitement as I arrived at the wharf where I would catch the boat to one of Penghu’s most difficult-to-access islands, a trip that had been on my list for nearly a decade. Little did I know, my dream would soon be crush
Succession fans rejoice. Jesse Armstrong has again gathered together a conclave of uber-wealthy megalomaniacs in a delicious satire.Mountainhead, which the Succession creator wrote and directed, is a new made-for-HBO movie that leaves behind the backstabbing machinations of media moguls for the not-
Imagine being able to visit a museum and examine up close thousand-year-old pottery, revel alone in jewelry from centuries past, or peer inside a Versace bag.Now London’s V&A has launched a revolutionary new exhibition space, where visitors can choose from some 250,000 objects, order something they
The injured fox is cornered in a cage, teeth bared and snarling at the woman trying to help it.Nicki Townsend is unfazed. Wearing only rubber gloves and an outfit suitable for a yoga class, she approaches with soothing words. “All right, baby,” she coos as she deftly drapes a towel over his head, gr
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