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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) 
The 38th Reich: Korean Nazi Cosplay 
Castration Classes at the Beijing Eunuch Culture Exhibition Hall 
Amazing Old Bollywood Poster Shops 
China’s all-time favorite (and all-time darkest?) comic book: Sanmao 
Beijing’s incredible (and completely fake) Disneyland 
Why Chinese People Eat Ants 
Prosthetic Noses, Red Wigs, and Whiteface… American Characters in Chinese Films 
This Hindu God has 1,000 Vaginas! 
Nazi Fashion in China 
Learn How to Speak North Korean 
Beijing’s Single Most Horrific Meal 
India’s Incredibly Cool Hand-Drawn Movie Posters 
About Andy Deemer & AsiaObscura 
What the Fortune Teller Told Me (Hong Kong) 
The Sick Collector and His 1000 Pairs of Shoes 
Small Children Feeding Live Animals to Tigers in a Chinese Zoo 
Why Chinese People Eat Deer Penis 
Outrageously Cute Korean Cosplay: The 21 Favorites 
Chisney & Koreansney: Local Disney Knockoffs 
18 Terrible Moments from a Taoist Hell 
Whoring in Chiang Mai 
One Ghostly Cambodian Ruin 
A Huge Pile of Gorgeous Old Thai Movie Posters 
Dr Shankar’s Wonderful Collection of Brains and Other Medical Obscura 
Another Abandoned Beijing Amusement Park 
Sweet gruesome statue asking for donations 
Heavy Petting in Seoul 
Our Six Best China Stories! 
Porn, Rats, and Antique Projectors at Sri Lanka’s Classic Cinemas 
Beijing’s Dongyue Temple and Their 19 Incredible Taoist Gods 
American Imperialist Bastards in a North Korean Comic Book 
Best Pix from Bangalore’s First Ever ComicCon 
The Great Chinese Chip Taste-Off 
Relive the Cultural Revolution (aka The Weirdest Dinner Theater in Beijing) 
Metropolis finally finds the right marketing campaign… 
A Postcard from Erenhot 
Return to Fake Disneyland? Sweeeeeet! 
Why Chinese People Eat Snake as Medicine - 15 More Pictures from weirdoid Tiger Balm Park
On Horse Meat Sashimi 
The Bold Boys of Korean Cosplay 
The Poem I Can’t Find… 
North Korea frightening customs declarations form - The Disastrous Fall of Sanmao
Amazing Skull Haircut on a Four-Year-Old 
13 Amazing Indian Circus Posters
Sweet Movies and Wild Books
Amitabh Bachchan: Comic Superhero
I’m a huge fan of Amitabh Bachchan. But then again, who isn’t? He’s the king of Bollywood. BBC readers chose him as the greatest star of stage or screen of the last thousand years. I’m sure you’ve seen him as the angry young man in Sholay, or the angry old man in Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham. Or, if not, as the randy boa-wearing letch in Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna? Oh, you really should. (I’m sure you’ll see him in The Great Gatsby when it finally hits screens.)
And then you should read his comics.
Yep, Amitabh, the superhero.
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Copyright Carelessness, Lost in Translation
Lady Di’s Forgotten Career?
Found in a Yangon, Myanmar sidewalk bookstall.
Lost in Translation
Two Girls, One Cup, Two Feeling
Sorry, the Two Girls One Cup video isn’t here. But there’s plenty of stomach-churning awesomeness here!
Something about this Burmese billboard made me feel a little queasy…
Holy Curiosities
Gorgeously Gory Paintings in a Burmese Temple
Most people visit Ananda Phaya to see the massive gold Buddha. I’m not surprised: it’s remarkable.
But hidden in a side-alcove, propped up in the ceiling, I couldn’t help noticing a series of paintings. Gloriously gore-filled paintings of demons wreaking havoc on mortals: boulders rolling over bloody victims, body parts dangling from coatracks, quartered corpses splayed out for crows, body part littering slabs of tile.
What was this?
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Sweet Movies and Wild Books
A Huge New Horde of Hand-drawn Indian Movie Posters
I hadn’t seen Ramachandraiah for far too long. He’s the movie poster artist. Some locals curse him as a ruin on this garden city. I hail him as an urban beautifying legend.
- See his first batch of posters here.
- His posters for my favorite movies: Suspiria, Wild at Heart, M, The Third Man, and Sixteen Candles.
“You want some samples?” he asked. His workshop was piled high in rolls of movie posters for local cinemas. Outsider masterpieces, they’re drawn in hours, printed on cheap sheets of 30″ by 20″ paper, and slapped up on highway overpasses, building sites, and concrete walls across the city.
His horror posters render horror in full 3-color gore and madness. Sam Raimi’s The Possession has never looked scarier:
Holy Curiosities
The Ancient Roots of Swamp Thing?
This weekend we trekked down to Shravanabelagola, to see the 57′-tall statue of a naked god, apparently carved from a single piece of rock. It was big. It was holy. It was awesome.
But at the same time, something about it looked so very familiar…
Sweet Movies and Wild Books
The Most Amazing Breakdancing Midget Sequence
It’s 12/12/12, so HAPPY BIRTHDAY RAJINI! I posted this before, but I think only my nephew watched it (about 47 times, my count so far says)… so here it is again. The most amazing Rajini scene of all time:
Now that’s awesome.
(As seen 10 minutes into Adhisaya Piravi, available on MoserBaer.)
Modern Ruins, Theme Parks
13 Amazing Indian Circus Posters
Shravanabelagola, India
We were in this tiny village to see a 57-foot naked man, towering over everything, but he wasn’t the only thing to catch my eye. Wheat-pasted to every surface — crumbling walls and old wooden shop doors — amazing Jumbo Circus posters!
Shameless Promotion
Beat Up Sneakers and Cashmere Hoodies
Thanks to Max for calling our attention to this page in Mark Steyn’s New York Times bestseller After America: Get Ready for Armageddon, a book we probably wouldn’t have read. In it, he manages to link me to America’s impending downfall.
Extraordinary Eats, Lost in Translation
Tastes Like Chicken
Since moving to India, we’ve seen a lot of Julie.
And this is what Julie saw offered in Koramangala today.
Consumerism
More MaxiPad Fun, with UnSticky Stickers
Hannah took us deep into the bowels of City Market, a mad maze of alleyways crammed tight with shops stacked atop one another. Porters and motorbikes race past, honking endlessly and piled unrealistically high with samples. Cows tread through it all, slathered in shit and chomping slowly on four-foot piles of trash. It’s terrifying, dirty, and absolutely amazing.
The trip had one singular purchase: the sticker shop. It’s not a shop — more of a hallway in the basement down an alley then down a smaller alley and then down a really frighteningly tiny alley. You take off your shoes before you enter the alley. And they’re not really stickers, either. They’re printed on the back of re-used sanitary napkin peels, and have to be pasted on with Elmer’s. But boy are they awesome.
For example, what better to print on MaxiPad peels than “Our Dams”?
Fashionista
Sidewalk ad for Adira’s Period Panty
Not sure what I loved most about this banner we passed in a Bangalore market: the complete unexpectedness of it, or the incredibly bad photoshopping of two different women.
Anyhow, I’m going for the hipster style.
Cute & Kawaii
Best Pix from Bangalore’s First Ever ComicCon
The blog has been ill-attended these last few weeks, with the move to India. Several grand projects are already underway here, but we’ll have to keep those hush-hush for the time being. But in the meantime, we did manage to escape the craziness of the city for Bangalore’s First EVER Comic Con this weekend!
It was tiny — the space was the size of a high school basketball court — but it was slammed with fans. And a few of them even thought to dress up.
Plenty more pix, after the jump!
Sweet Movies and Wild Books
Rajnikanth the Superstar
I couldn’t resist adding a second clip from Adhisaya Piravi, Rajnikanth’s 1990 epic.
“Whatever you hear,” says the gangster to his bodyguards, “screams, punches, cries for help… I don’t want you to turn around.”
Then Rajini the Superstar just happens to drive by.
Such bizarre new wave editing. And what a hero.
Extraordinary Eats
Beijing’s Single Most Horrific Meal
The Beijing Penis Restaurant, officially known as Guolizhuang, doesn’t just serve cock. You can get absolutely anything there.
Stewed Deer Face. Sheep foetus in brown garlic sauce. Peacock claws. It’s like a Guangzhouren’s wet dream.
And the peacock’s name was as poetic as the plating. It was called A Set of Palms from Heaven and Earth.
I almost gagged.
“Do you have any regular food,” I asked, nervous.
Continue reading »»
Strange Tourism
Peking Opera Dreams
I’ve long dreamed of full Peking Opera costume and makeup. After five hours and far too much money, it finally became a reality.
Consumerism, Historical Wonders
Bizarre Old North Korean Stamps Celebrating Regal Excess
On my way out of Deshengmen Tower — where you’ll find a strange collection of ramshackle museums crammed in together — I noticed the most remarkable thing for sale: old North Korean stamps, celebrating European regal excess!
There was the Versailles stamp, which reeks of excessive opulence…
Sweet Movies and Wild Books
The Amazing Indian Amazing Spider-Man Poster
My Bangalore pal Hannah just came across this new Ramachandraiah movie poster…
Absolutely gorgeous — I love it!
Strange Tourism
Adventures in Cockfighting
Most people come to Bali to Eat, Pray, Love. That’s not what I came for.
I was in Ubud, a town of foreign divorcees. They meditate in temples, crowd organic spas, and queue up teary-eyed outside the toothless medicine man’s home. It’s a town of romantic desperation.
Ironically, it’s also gagging with cock. The art museum has a room of dongs, gift shops sell boner-shaped bottle openers, and our classy hotel — full of erectile gongs and circumcised bathroom locks — resembles a Jack Shamama film.
Continue reading »»
Extraordinary Eats
On Eating Old Beijing Fried Enema
“Why not start today with a plate of freshly-fried old enema,” I thought. It was bright, garish, and advertised on the wall. “It must be good.”
It wasn’t.
Dripping in oil and yet crispy enough to snap a molar, it tasted like a bad plate of pork cracklings. The dipping sauce — chopped garlic in water — left it with a flavor and me with a breath from hell.
I’d assumed “enema” was a gross mismangling of “sausage” — 灌肠 can mean either. But I was wrong.
The name was an augury of what you’d need after lunch.
AO Events, Extraordinary Eats
On Eating a Steaming Hot Bowl of Sweet AIDS Soup
“I’ll have the AIDS soup,” I said.
It wasn’t officially called AIDS soup. Not now. Shortly after I’d blogged about their deviant menus, the restaurant had crossed out every appearance of the word “AIDS” with a sharpie. Now it was simply “Strong Tibetan Sheep Placenta Nourishing Soup [XXXX].”
Still a mouthful.
But I’d had a few beers, and scraped at the sharpie with my fingernail. The AIDS came back. Now I knew what I was getting. Strong Tibetan Sheep Placenta Nourishing Soup AIDS.
And this was what I’d come for.
Continue reading »»
Offbeat Museums
Rediscovering Beijing: The Ancient Observatory
The author of the the 1897 guide book charts the Astronomical Observatory as one of the must-sees of Old Peking. It’s his first stop on any three-day tour.
I’d always planned to pay a visit. This is what you see from the highway:
Almost identical, but…
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Historical Wonders, Strange Tourism
Rediscovering Beijing: Finding the Elephants
On using an 1897 guidebook to explore modern Beijing…
My adventures begin with the elephants.
A few hundred yards westward of (the Shun-chih-men) is the place for the Imperial elephants, the Hsün-hsiang-so, a large enclosure in which the elephants of the Court are kept… The intelligent animals are taught to salute the Emperor by kneeling down, and receive a kind of adoration.
A central-Beijing stable with kneeling elephants? How much cooler can you get?! I had to find this place.
Continue reading »»
Historical Wonders, Strange Tourism
Rediscovering Beijing with an 1897 Guide
Did you know that Beijing has a dozen or so elephants that kneel as the emperor passes by? Seriously.
At least that’s what my book says. It’s a Beijing travel guide from 1897, author unknown, that Charlie Custer found on archive.org. The copy originally belonged to Herbert Hoover, China expat and one-time US President.
Copyright Carelessness
Bootleg Wikipedia-Brand Bread
Why buy generic no-name Beijing loafery when you can pay just a few extra kuai for the sweet wheat of Wikipedia-brand bread? Oops, sorry, Wekipedia-brand.
That’s right! The Free Encyclowheatia That Anyone Can Edit! Now all that’s left to do is pair it with some McDonald’s Eggs for a copyright infringing Egg in the Hole. Mmmyeah.
Known locally as 维百客, or Wéibǎikè, it could translate as “Feed 100 Guests.” Hate to say, but I think we’d need Jesus to make that happen here. Waitasec! Is that Jesus right there???
Courtesy of Beijing Wekipedia Foods Co Ltd.
Sweet Movies and Wild Books
American Imperialist Bastards in a North Korean Comic Book
I don’t speak a word of Korean. I wish I did, if only so I could read this North Korean comic that’s been sitting on my bookshelf for years.
Strange Tourism
The Pyongyang Metro
North Koreans are proud of their metro. And so they should be. It’s one of the deepest, it’s breathtakingly gorgeous, and we were only allowed to ride one stop. (Although I’ve heard tourists can now ride the entire length.)
Here are some pages from a great 2004 picture-book I bought in the metro, bluntly titled The Pyongyang Metro.
Offbeat Museums
The Chinese Businessman Museum
With only ten days left in Beijing, I’m realizing how many things I’ve left undone. The Summer Palace… Fragrant Hills… the Chinese Businessman Museum!
It’s ugly, so you might not notice it. It’s in Sihui, so it’s hell to reach. It’s expensive, so who wants to enter.
And it’s also a lie.
Continue reading »»
Extraordinary Eats
Ice Cream Flavored Soda, the Perfect Summer Treat
Headline says it all, if you ask me.
Michelle’s first words after a pull were more like shrieks.
“Oh my god,” she cried. “It’s like an ice cream float in a bottle!”
Softly vanilla-scented and creamy, barely carbonated, sweet but not too sweet, it was just lovely.
I added a strong pour of Mongolian vodka, and a twist of lime.
Now that’s a Beijing summer.
Sweet Movies and Wild Books
Another Indian Film Still
Also found in a crate in Mumbai.
Something about her was so desperate, filled me with angst and longing. Is that a wedding poster in her hand? Is she Vijay’s bride, or is she his one true love, and she’s just discovered he’s getting an arranged marriage this afternoon??? I’d love to know who she is, or the name of the film…