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Top Obscura
The Creepiest Amusement Park of All Time? 
21 Amazing Bangalore Breakfast Dishes 
Why Chinese People Eat Sea Horse 
Classic Chinese Torture Methods (and their cute names) 
Learn How to Speak North Korean 
China’s all-time favorite (and all-time darkest?) comic book: Sanmao 
Amazing Old Bollywood Poster Shops 
Beijing’s Single Most Horrific Meal 
Beijing’s incredible (and completely fake) Disneyland 
The 38th Reich: Korean Nazi Cosplay 
Castration Classes at the Beijing Eunuch Culture Exhibition Hall 
Prosthetic Noses, Red Wigs, and Whiteface… American Characters in Chinese Films 
18 Terrible Moments from a Taoist Hell 
Nazi Fashion in China 
India’s Incredibly Cool Hand-Drawn Movie Posters 
This Hindu God has 1,000 Vaginas! 
Why Chinese People Eat Deer Penis 
About Andy Deemer & AsiaObscura 
Beijing’s Dongyue Temple and Their 19 Incredible Taoist Gods 
Why Chinese People Eat Ants 
Outrageously Cute Korean Cosplay: The 21 Favorites 
The Sick Collector and His 1000 Pairs of Shoes 
What the Fortune Teller Told Me (Hong Kong) 
The Poem I Can’t Find… 
Why Chinese People Eat Snake as Medicine 
Another Abandoned Beijing Amusement Park 
Whoring in Chiang Mai - Awesomely Steampunk Portable Corn Roaster
One Ghostly Cambodian Ruin 
Small Children Feeding Live Animals to Tigers in a Chinese Zoo 
The Taj Mahal… Murder, Incest, and Fratricide - The Disastrous Fall of Sanmao
American Imperialist Bastards in a North Korean Comic Book 
Dr Shankar’s Wonderful Collection of Brains and Other Medical Obscura 
A Postcard from Erenhot 
Deranged Clown Cream Biscuits 
Inspector Black Cat: China’s Gore-Soaked Answer to Tom & Jerry 
Medicinal Sea Horse Soup 
China’s first sci-fi movie: Death Ray on Coral Island (1980) 
Beyond the Valley of the Dwarfs: The Strangest Theme Park Ever? 
North Korea frightening customs declarations form 
Our Six Best China Stories! 
Antilia: The Most Gratuitous House in Mumbai 
Noel Wilson’s Awesome Soccer-Themed House 
The Insane Monkey Bar in Tokyo 
Porn, Rats, and Antique Projectors at Sri Lanka’s Classic Cinemas 
North Korean traffic lights… um… robot ladies. 
Relive the Cultural Revolution (aka The Weirdest Dinner Theater in Beijing) 
Hello Kitty & Cuppuccino! 
On Horse Meat Sashimi
Category Archives: The Occult
Shameless Promotion, The Occult
Phnom Penh Insider Investigates AsiaObscura
A few months ago, we ran a rather scandalous report on the insane ting mong scarecrows we'd spotted in the jungles of Cambodia. They were terrifying, but we knew almost nothing about them. Our driver was vague, the hotel receptionist insisted she'd never seen them before. So we slapped up the photos, ...
The Occult
Insanely Creepy Cambodian Scarecrows
It's so easy to be seduced by the beauty and simple peace of Cambodia... Oh, the temples, the jungles, the country roads. Although behind such breathtaking beauty sometimes there hides a wretched darkness. "Wha? What was that?" The first one we passed, we thought it was a man hiding in a bush. Waving a ...
Holy Curiosities, The Occult
The Modern Afterlife
With Melaka being a culture mix of Indian, Malay, Chinese, Dutch and Portuguese, amongst others, local customs are very much honored and preserved. Buddhists, keeping up with modern times, offer their ancestors the very best in the afterlife. Apart from the expected cash to spend and incense to purify and keep them from ...
Extraordinary Eats, The Occult
Lucky Fruit (and Ain’t So Lucky Fish)
Yesterday, these little nectarines showed up at the market. Dyed (branded? scalded? waxed? greased up with dirty stinking chemicals?) with Chinese characters, they read tall (高), shining (照), a thing (事) and happiness (喜). "No, no, no," said Echo, a good friend. "You've bought the wrong ones, and got them in the wrong ...
Modern Ruins, The Occult
Fake Graveyards outside Beijing
The Beijing suburbs are expanding like mad.We spent the last ten days living in a small Tongzhou village, an hour east of Beijing, and construction was non-stop. Every day we were there, a ramshackle house was torn down and replaced by a building site. New walls would go up in hours. Bricks and dust were ...
Historical Wonders, Holy Curiosities, The Occult
Keep the Evil Away For Chinese New Year
In Zhangbi, an ancient Shanxi village surrounded by sprawling factories, we just discovered the perfect antidote for bad ghosts... and it's.... Apparently, cypress! I'm not sure how prevalent this is across China, but every old Zhangbi door had a sprig of cypress shoved into it. "避邪," explained the guide Lucy, who had no idea how to explain ...
The Occult
What the Fortune Teller Told Me (Hong Kong)
Temple Street night market is amazing. Past the hawkers of clothes, bootleg DVDs, sex toys and octopus porn, there lies something so completely wonderful: a street of fortune tellers. Rows of them, one after another after another. I was astounded. I didn't know what to do, where to go. So I tried to see ...
The Occult
What the Fortune Teller Told Me (Mongolia)
"I don't think you can see the Shamen," the fixer murmured. He watched his cup, the table, a fly, anything that wasn't our eyes. "They are far from here. In the mountains. It would take a long time to see them." He traced a line along a creased map of ...
The Occult
What the Fortune Teller Told Me (Don Khon, Laos)
We got lucky in Don Khon -- the island's annual celebrations were well underway the weekend we were there. Here in southern Laos, evidently "big celebrations" means "get mad drunk and hit the temples," cos that's what everyone did. The Wat laid out a huge spread, with hand-cranked carousels, dart gambling, cover bands, and tons ...
Historical Wonders, Holy Curiosities, Offbeat Museums, The Occult
The Craziest Holy Sculptor in Laos
The long, slow, dusty bus-ride cost 20 cents and took lord knows how long. But eventually it delivered us to the incredible Buddha Park. You see, 40 or so years ago, some loony Lao was hiking along a remote mountain trace, accidentally tripped, and fell into a hole. A deep hole. It was a lot like ...
The Occult
What the Fortune Teller Told Me (Chiang Rai, Thailand)
After the ugly Burmese reading (become a used car salesman / stay indoors after dark / don't date until April), I had to go in for a second opinion. So today I tried this Chiang Rai palm-reader. He must be good. He read palms with one glass eye. "You are 36?" He didn't speak ...
The Occult
What the Fortune Teller Told Me (Myawaddy, Burma)
The Burmese palm reader warned me not to invest, or date women, until April. "You will be very unlucky." And to stay in after 9pm, "unless you go out with a friend." After referencing a chart in a book, he decided selling cars would be a good career. "Do you have any questions ...