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Top Obscura
21 Amazing Bangalore Breakfast Dishes 
The Creepiest Amusement Park of All Time? 
China’s all-time favorite (and all-time darkest?) comic book: Sanmao 
Classic Chinese Torture Methods (and their cute names) 
Amazing Old Bollywood Poster Shops 
Beijing’s incredible (and completely fake) Disneyland 
Why Chinese People Eat Sea Horse 
The 38th Reich: Korean Nazi Cosplay 
India’s Incredibly Cool Hand-Drawn Movie Posters 
Prosthetic Noses, Red Wigs, and Whiteface… American Characters in Chinese Films 
Why Chinese People Eat Ants 
This Hindu God has 1,000 Vaginas! 
Castration Classes at the Beijing Eunuch Culture Exhibition Hall 
Nazi Fashion in China 
What the Fortune Teller Told Me (Hong Kong) 
Why Chinese People Eat Deer Penis 
One Ghostly Cambodian Ruin 
About Andy Deemer & AsiaObscura 
The Insane Monkey Bar in Tokyo 
Beijing’s Single Most Horrific Meal 
The Sick Collector and His 1000 Pairs of Shoes 
A Huge Pile of Gorgeous Old Thai Movie Posters 
Whoring in Chiang Mai 
Learn How to Speak North Korean 
Why Chinese People Eat Snake as Medicine 
Those Creepy Japanese Videos, Finally Explained 
Philadelphia CheeseSteak Ice Cream 
The Best Place to Eat and Poop, Together! - Awesomely Steampunk Portable Corn Roaster
A Huge New Horde of Hand-drawn Indian Movie Posters 
Pyongyang Too: A Tribute to Guy Delisle 
The New iOS Game From the Creators of AsiaObscura 
18 Terrible Moments from a Taoist Hell 
Red Onion-Flavored Red Wine 
Gorgeously Gory Paintings in a Burmese Temple 
Beijing’s Dongyue Temple and Their 19 Incredible Taoist Gods 
American Imperialist Bastards in a North Korean Comic Book 
Sweet gruesome statue asking for donations 
A Postcard from Erenhot 
On Horse Meat Sashimi 
The Taj Mahal… Murder, Incest, and Fratricide 
Small Children Feeding Live Animals to Tigers in a Chinese Zoo 
Outrageously Cute Korean Cosplay: The 21 Favorites - Why Chinese People Eat Fried Worms
A Sweet New Batch of Indian Movie Posters 
Antilia: The Most Gratuitous House in Mumbai 
Another Diana Pose at the Taj Mahal 
The Eko Nugroho Flower Suit Lives On 
Porn, Rats, and Antique Projectors at Sri Lanka’s Classic Cinemas 
Plants vs Zombies, The Chinese Knockoff Toys
Category Archives: Uncategorized
Uncategorized
Happy Easter!
Here's another lamb-alicious clip from the 1975 cultural revolution ballet, "Sons & Daughters of the Grassland." Remember, while watching, that that lamb is a metaphor for something or other. Oh, I'm probably imagining that. Happy Easter, and enjoy!
Uncategorized
AquaWeird in Qingdao
Yesterday I posted about the strange fish you'll find in Qingdao's Huilan Pavilion (as seen on every Qingdao and Tsingtao bottle of beer) -- but that's not all you'll find inside. For your four kuai (about $0.60) admission, you'll enter a strange world of aquatic wonders. Like this bizarre lizard-fish...Actually, as a couple friends ...
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Siamese fighting fish
We're still deep in the trenches at the taxidermy school outside Beijing, but I thought I'd take a moment to remember some living animals we came across, recently: Cambodian fighting fish. The males of the species will live for 2 or 3 years, it's said, and maybe even 7 or 9 if fed right... but if ...
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The Illegal Mae Sot-Burma Border Crossing
I put this up on YouTube a little while back, but it's definitely worth putting up here: the illegal border crossing at Mae Sot.I shot this from the Thai side of the Thai-Burmese border. To get from Mae Sot to Myawaddy, you cross a bridge, pay a toll, and have your passport confiscated for ...
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If Amy Chua was mother to us all, maybe we could do this too…
The young kids in this video practiced for the entire year, or longer, to get the show right... and it's just remarkable. They're just six or seven years old, if I understood correctly. The whole effort, the Mass Games, is devoted to the Dear Leader (who turned 69 this week) and the Great Leader ...
Other Obscura, Uncategorized
Little Thai MonkeyRatPig Thing
Does anyone have any idea what this is? It was sitting in a cage outside some Bangkok restaurant (to be eaten? or just as an oddity?) It's not a gerbil, not a guinea pig... So what is it? Kinda cute, in an ugly way....
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North Korean traffic lights… um… robot ladies.
North Korea The DPRK doesn't have much money. Or electricity. In our hotel, the Yanggakdo, the upper floors had no electricity (save for the one with a handful of Americans/Europeans staying on it). The Koreans would get on and off the elevator, into a floor of darkness. Shops with customers were pitch dark. The ...
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My Sleeping Co-workers
I hadn't heard of www.sleepingchinese.com before The WooLand Hotel mentioned it the other day, but it reminded me of a small collection of photos I took over the span of just a week or two. This wasn't a particularly rough week -- no late nights or anything -- and yet... LJ.Echo.Ginger.I worked beside this girl ...
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Happy Year of the Rabbit! 新年快乐！
(Optimistically cute sign spotted at the Tiger Balm Gardens, a few months ago... the kids loved it!)Updates will be light this week, as Michelle and I are out on the road, exploring more wild China...
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Remarkable Pet Carrying Device
I'd just climbed off a Guangdong bus, and was waiting for Michelle at the bus station, when this little fellow popped his head -- quite unexpectedly -- out of his box. When I started taking pictures, of course his mom had to come and have a look... make sure everything was okay, and all...
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Coolest King Photos, Ever
King Rama IX, the King of Thailand, is groovy. I haven't read the ugly tell-all bio yet, but based on pictures alone, this is a man I can adore. Some oldies, first: But this next picture, his newest, which ran as the above-the-fold cover photo for every Thai newspaper on the first of January ...
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OCD in Hong Kong
Bird Avian Dog OCD Pork flu is raging across Hong Kong, and these signs are attached to absolutely everything. (I find it hard to believe they're really disinfecting that elevator every two hours...)
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Mystery, Intrigue, Trans-Siberian Express
To get from Beijing to Mongolia, you have a few choices. A flight takes just over an hour. The Trans-Siberian Express, meanwhile, offers a rugged thirty-hour ride through cities, towns, barren landscapes, desert, and finally the capital of Chingghis Khan.It's a famously hard ride. I pictured drunk Russians and fiery Mongols and live chickens and ...
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Awesome Mongolian Pop Star
I don't really know who this guy is, but I found him in a restaurant in the rural one-pony town of Lun.
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Old Pirate Ships in Old Japan
After the insanity of Tokyo, I really needed a break. So, on the advice of a teenage stranger at a sushi bar, I bought a 3-day pass to Hakone. And what a break it is. A mountain town, there's almost nothing to do here. No madness, no crowds, and certainly no stress. Just groups of ...
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Eating Diaphram in Tokyo
Another of Tokyo's "best meal" contenders was Toraji Param, a Korean hormone restaurant on the 500-something-th floor of some fancy Tokyo building. As the elevator flew up the 5000 flights, my ears popped. At our table, floor-to-ceiling windows showed off all of Tokyo. It was jaw-dropping, to put it mildly. And then the ...
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Hayao Miyazaki’s Breathtakingly Awesome Ghibli Museum, Tokyo
To be honest, I came to Tokyo for only three reasons. Each had been percolating in my mind, independently, for years. Each seemed to be something I needed to do. Each of these demanded a pilgrimage. And each of these would be difficult. I first read about The Ghibli Museum in a ...
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50-foot Shaq, Towering Over Beijing
On the east side of Beijing's Chaoyang Park, you'll find some weird stuff. A dog park, for starters. Filled with statues of Santa Claus. For dogs to ride on. This is weird.But what really blew my mind was this 50-foot tall statue of Shaq, which towers over trees in the entrance ...
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Weird Things in Chiang Mai
My favorite things about Chiang Mai were all pretty weird... Watch the video for dancing elephants and more.
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Fighting Cocks
I found this sign on a roadside outside Old Sukhothai, the ancient former capital of Thailand. But I never found the venue. I gave up after half an hour of cycling the same stretch, over and over and over again.
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Illegal border crossing between Burma and Thailand
This is incredible -- it's the illegal (but very open) border crossing between Myawaddy, Burma, and Mae Sot, Thailand. I shot this in the shadow of the official border bridge.