-
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) 
Amazing Old Bollywood Poster Shops 
The 38th Reich: Korean Nazi Cosplay 
Beijing’s incredible (and completely fake) Disneyland 
Castration Classes at the Beijing Eunuch Culture Exhibition Hall 
China’s all-time favorite (and all-time darkest?) comic book: Sanmao 
Why Chinese People Eat Ants 
Prosthetic Noses, Red Wigs, and Whiteface… American Characters in Chinese Films 
Learn How to Speak North Korean 
Beijing’s Single Most Horrific Meal 
This Hindu God has 1,000 Vaginas! 
Nazi Fashion in China 
About Andy Deemer & AsiaObscura 
India’s Incredibly Cool Hand-Drawn Movie Posters 
Small Children Feeding Live Animals to Tigers in a Chinese Zoo 
The Sick Collector and His 1000 Pairs of Shoes 
What the Fortune Teller Told Me (Hong Kong) 
Why Chinese People Eat Deer Penis 
Outrageously Cute Korean Cosplay: The 21 Favorites 
Chisney & Koreansney: Local Disney Knockoffs 
Whoring in Chiang Mai 
18 Terrible Moments from a Taoist Hell 
One Ghostly Cambodian Ruin 
Another Abandoned Beijing Amusement Park 
Dr Shankar’s Wonderful Collection of Brains and Other Medical Obscura 
A Huge Pile of Gorgeous Old Thai Movie Posters 
The Poem I Can’t Find… 
Heavy Petting in Seoul 
Beijing’s Dongyue Temple and Their 19 Incredible Taoist Gods 
Our Six Best China Stories! 
American Imperialist Bastards in a North Korean Comic Book 
Porn, Rats, and Antique Projectors at Sri Lanka’s Classic Cinemas 
Sweet gruesome statue asking for donations 
Best Pix from Bangalore’s First Ever ComicCon - The Disastrous Fall of Sanmao
Why Chinese People Eat Snake as Medicine 
North Korea frightening customs declarations form 
Relive the Cultural Revolution (aka The Weirdest Dinner Theater in Beijing) 
North Korean traffic lights… um… robot ladies. 
13 Amazing Indian Circus Posters 
Return to Fake Disneyland? Sweeeeeet! 
China’s first sci-fi movie: Death Ray on Coral Island (1980) 
The Incredible Furniture of North Korea 
A Postcard from Erenhot 
Metropolis finally finds the right marketing campaign… - 15 More Pictures from weirdoid Tiger Balm Park
The Great Chinese Chip Taste-Off
Tag Archives: video
Sweet Movies and Wild Books
A Brief Aside on Dr Rajkumar, the James Bond of Southern India
Alone in the hotel, drinking Kingfisher and watching old Karanataka films. In 1981's Keralida Simha, an honest cop has to break up a party of riotous and drugged out delinquents. And it's something akin to poetry. I don't know much about Kannada cinema -- it's called Sandalwood -- but the cop with the sweet mustache ...
Strange Tourism, Theme Parks
Small Children Feeding Live Animals to Tigers in a Chinese Zoo
In northern China there's a tiger park. Like so many things in China, it's nothing like you might expect. To start with, there's a menu at the gate. These aren't animals to take home and domesticate. They're fodder. Victims to be released on your tour. "Let's get a cow," I said. Michelle just ...
Cute & Kawaii
Bangkok’s Sweetest Secret Dance Party
Bangkok is awesome. Pad thai, ping pong balls, reclining buddhas. But nowhere is sweeter than this hidden corridor of Central World Mall, where crowds of high school kids practice their sweet dance moves every weekend. Each gang brings their own routines and own MP3 players. Any reflective surface--shop windows, aluminum panelling, ...
Life in Miniature, Theme Parks
Beyond the Valley of the Dwarfs: The Strangest Theme Park Ever?
"Before coming here, I was tending cattle, and feeding pigs," Xiao Cao told me. "I never even knew how to dance." "And now, she's our leading dancer!" laughed Zhang Furong. Xiao Cao is a dancer. Zhang Furong is a singer. They're both under 4'3" tall. They live in, and perform at, The ...
Somewhat Perverted
Those Creepy Japanese Videos, Finally Explained
If you've been wondering about the creepy Japanese videos I've been posting -- videos of girls staring blankly at the camera for a minute, then uttering a single short phrase -- I'm finally ready to offer an explanation. They're called "ミテルだけ" (pronounced "miteru dake") which means "Just Looking" or "Only Looking." I first heard about ...
Theme Parks
Incredible Low-Tech Laotian Merry-Go-Round
When I was living in Kathmadu 20 years ago (yow!) this summer, I found this awesomely makeshift ferris wheel in a nearby theme park. A teenager would stand in the middle, and walk from one bar to the next, giving passengers a slow, staggered ride. Much more recently in southern Laos, down on the island Don Khon, ...
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!
Holy Curiosities
Celebrating Easter in China…
When you're in a country that doesn't officially celebrate Easter, like China, sometimes you get nervous. Will the Easter Bunny get his visa yanked at the last-minute? Are you sure those chocolate eggs are melamine-free? Is the holiday even legal here?Well, we had those same concerns too, but finally decided China's gonna love Easter!Good ...
Extraordinary Eats
Kiev: The Weirdest Ukranian Opera Restaurant in Beijing
Missing those classic Yevhen Hrebinka hits? Desperate for a Chicken Kiev and a bottle of Stoli? But sick of those stern Soviet babushkas slapping down watery bowls of borscht? I hear you, brother. The closest I'd gotten to good Ukranian in Asia was in a subterranean Beijing nightclub. The bouncer outside was a scowling mohawked dwarf in ...
Uncategorized
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 ...
Uncategorized
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 ...
Historical Wonders, Holy Curiosities
The Story of (These Creepily Awesome) Big Head Buddhas, with video
Michelle's spent a slew of Chinese New Years here in Beijing, but she's never seen these before -- 大头娃娃 (Dàtóu wáwá or Dai Tao Fut) -- incredible paper mache masks that we found in the back of a junk store, in Bangkok's Chinatown. In English, they're called Big Headed Buddhas, and for just a few ...
Modern Ruins, Theme Parks
The Romance Park of the Heart – an abandoned Beijing theme park
Beijing's filled with hidden secrets. Behind all those highrise tower blocks and overpasses, there is awesomeness to be found. And so it was that we heard rumors of a decrepit half-built theme park, somewhere way out west. The rumors came from a Chinese film student, who'd heard them from a friend, who'd ...
Uncategorized
Weird Things in Chiang Mai
My favorite things about Chiang Mai were all pretty weird... Watch the video for dancing elephants and more.
Uncategorized
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.