Visiting Vietnam for the First Time: The Wary Backpacker Edition

It seems BTS did not only take k-pop by storm but also fashion. The K-pop group walked Louis Vuitton’s FW21 runway as their global ambassadors. The pop icons graced the show in a fashion film directed by Jeon Go-woon.

A Japanese aquarium has come up with a wild idea to entertain the public during its temporary closure due to the coronavirus outbreak — introducing sea animals to each other and sharing the results online.

From juicy mangoes and fresh lemons to tropical guava and plums: Hanoi’s fruit comes piled high on the back of bicycles, peddled by street vendors who roam every nook and cranny of the Vietnamese capital.

Three Chinese nationals and two Mauritanians were kidnapped in southwest Mali on Saturday, the country’s armed forces said, in the latest attack in the war-torn Sahel state.

Music icon Cher shared her delight after a Pakistani court ordered freedom for a lonely elephant, who had become the subject of a high-profile rights campaign backed by the US singer.

China has confirmed its first case of a new coronavirus variant that was recently detected in Britain, health officials said.

Organisers of Asia’s top film festival, which opens in Busan this week, warn that a surge of global interest in the critically acclaimed South Korean movie “Parasite” masks a damaging underinvestment in local independent cinema.

Stranded on superyachts or confined to their sprawling mansions worrying about their wine cellars, the world’s super rich have invited ridicule throughout the coronavirus pandemic with their apparent insensitivity to the plight of ordinary people.

Nuclear-armed North Korea is advancing on the front lines of cyberwarfare, analysts say, stealing billions of dollars and presenting a clearer and more present danger than its banned weapons programs.

Skin-whitening, child marriage, a curtailed education: Vietnamese model and literacy campaigner H’Hen Nie has defied traditional expectations laid on her — and is now determined to show the next generation a different way.

Israel-based web host Wix pulled a Hong Kong democracy website from its servers following a takedown request by the Chinese financial hub’s police, a decision the company said Friday was “a mistake”.

Long maligned as job-stealers and aspiring overlords, robots are being increasingly relied on as fast, efficient, contagion-proof champions in the war against the deadly coronavirus.

A car horn beeps and the horror begins: a bloody murder and rampaging zombies. But this drive-in haunted house in Japan protects against the most terrifying enemy of all — coronavirus.

Nintendo made a $1 billion net profit in the first quarter, it said Thursday, with gamers stuck at home during the coronavirus pandemic driving extraordinary demand for the industry.

A coronavirus-free tropical island nestled in the northern Pacific may seem the perfect place to ride out a pandemic — but residents on Palau say life right now is far from idyllic.

Nearly 2,500 rare rhino horns were destroyed Wednesday in the first ceremony of its kind in northeastern India as part of an anti-poaching drive to mark World Rhino Day.

China’s ambition in the South China Sea: The controversy that surpassed the test of time and emerges to menacing levels

The humble chopsticks were truly modern ahead of its time. Specifically, 5000 years ahead!

Taiwan’s top court on Friday said some hunting restrictions placed on the island’s Indigenous inhabitants were unconstitutional, but stopped short of supporting the complete overhaul of regulations that campaigners had pushed for.

Netflix has gotten the right to produce Liu Cixin’s popular science fiction work The Three Body Problem into a series. The project will involve bigtime names in the industry like Game of Thrones’ David Benioff and D.B. Weiss as executive producers, and director Rian Johnson from The Last Jedi.

A teenage pro-democracy protester shot by a Hong Kong police officer was on Thursday charged with rioting, as authorities were reportedly set to ban the wearing of face masks at public rallies.

After a long week cooking and cleaning in the cramped households of Hong Kong, a group of Filipino domestic helpers are using their Sunday off for an unlikely hobby: cricket. And they’re proving rather good at it.

A supermarket in Thailand garnered attention from the netizens around the world for the implementation of its store policy which replaces plastic packaging

Troubled game Cyberpunk 2077 will return to PlayStation stores from next week, Sony confirmed Wednesday, six months after it was pulled over bugs and compatibility issues.

Thousands of prefabricated rooms fill a vast field on the outskirts of China’s Shijiazhuang city as construction crews work around the clock to erect a large quarantine facility to curb the city’s growing Covid-19 outbreak.

Taiwan’s capital on Friday announced an indefinite closure of entertainment venues in the wake of a widening outbreak of local coronavirus infections.

Japan is the largest consumer of Sesame in the world, with around 160,000 tons of import from Latin American annually. And for good reason: Sesame is one of the key ingredients in Japanese cuisine adding not only to the dish’s taste value but also nutritional content.

China’s closest allies and the adversaries in its path

Auction powerhouse Christie’s is finally checking off a milestone many have waited for – its first major NFT auction in Asia. The company’s “No Time Like Present” auction will begin on September 17 and will feature works from Larva Labs, among other artists.

The World Health Organization called on Tuesday for a halt to the sale of live wild mammals in food markets to prevent the emergence of new diseases such as Covid-19.

Tens of thousands of Hong Kongers packed into a park Saturday night to mourn a student who died during recent clashes as police arrested a group of pro-democracy lawmakers, deepening the city’s political crisis.

China on Monday announced a drastic cut to children’s online gaming time to just three hours a week during term time, the latest move in a broad crackdown on tech giants in the world’s biggest gaming market.

Researchers in Hong Kong Monday identified what they said was the first confirmed case worldwide of COVID-19 reinfection, raising questions about the durability of immunity, whether acquired naturally or with a vaccine.

The head of the World Health Organization believes China’s battle with the coronavirus offers a beacon of hope, but others question whether Beijing’s strategy can be followed by other countries — particularly Western democracies.

China reported a death from Covid-19 on Thursday — its first in eight months — as the country battles to contain a resurgence in cases and prepares for the arrival of an expert team from the WHO.

Here are all the things you need to know about Japan

Microsoft on Thursday lobbied for other countries to follow Australia’s lead in calling for news outlets to be paid for stories published online, a move opposed by Facebook and Google.

The US government is looking into what happened to a $5,800 bottle of whiskey given by Japan to former secretary of state Mike Pompeo but which is now apparently missing, US media reported Wednesday.

Hong Kong media tycoon Jimmy Lai was jailed for 14 months on Friday along with four other veteran democracy activists for their roles in protests that helped trigger a sweeping crackdown on dissent by China — sentences that prompted consternation from the US, Britain and the EU.

Japan has quarantined a cruise ship carrying 3,711 people and was testing those onboard for the new coronavirus Tuesday after a former passenger was diagnosed with the illness in Hong Kong.

While many countries are scrambling to empty their embassies and remove their staff from Afghanistan, Russia is staying put — it has long prepared for the arrival of the Taliban in Kabul.

How is Asia grappling with ever-increasing levels of toxic smog in its busiest cities?

Japanese lawmaker Yasuhiko Funago has a neurological disease that means he cannot speak and communicates by blinking to his carer or operating a computer system with his mouth.

A string of hitmen who repeatedly subcontracted a murder to each other — then failed to go through with the job have been jailed in China.

After successfully muzzling Hong Kong’s democracy protests and opposition, Beijing’s loyalists are now taking aim at the arts as they seek to impose mainland-style orthodoxy on culture and purge the city of dissent.

With the Olympics postponed due to the coronavirus, top Japanese fencer Ryo Miyake has swapped his metal mask and foil for a bike and backpack as a Tokyo UberEats deliveryman.

In recent years, Asia’s footwear market has boomed drastically. With its climbing revenue, it comes as no surprise that even people in the West are getting enamored by homegrown Asian shoe brands that ace the branding and quality game.

The youngest Paralympian in Tokyo took to the pool on Thursday looking to change attitudes to disability, as more world records were smashed on the second day of competition.

A climate change summit hosted by South Korea has drawn ridicule for kicking off with a promotional video suggesting it was taking place in the North Korean capital, Pyongyang.

Snatching moments of clarity through the brain fog that was among the lingering symptoms of her coronavirus infection, Hannah Davis joined a team of similarly ill researchers and launched a study of what is now called “long Covid”.

As China faces increasing isolation, with some countries closing off borders over coronavirus fears, an unlikely friend has emerged — historical arch-foe Japan.