The Diplomat · Featured
Forbidden Ink: Japan's Contentious Tattoo Heritage
Despite an illustrious past and revered status overseas, Japanese tattoos have long struggled for acceptance at home.
Read the feature →Rituals, craft, art, music, and food — the texture of daily life that gives a place its meaning, reported up close across Asia.
Despite an illustrious past and revered status overseas, Japanese tattoos have long struggled for acceptance at home.
Read the feature →An interview with thangka master painter and teacher Ambar Lama on the state of this iconic Tibetan art.
How a book by a Bangkok-based British author came to embody a shift in Thai cultural consciousness.
How a wave of crime fiction turned Bangkok's shadow side — its bars, vice, and back alleys — into a literary genre all its own.
Asia has a long way to go in addressing its political baggage. A more progressive spirit in the region's popular culture could help change the conversation.
To what extent could a shared cultural sphere overcome bitter disputes and heal wounds from East Asia's past?
Although the mermaid mythos is normally thought to be Western, it runs deep in Asia too.
Asia's taste for shark fin soup endangers a number of species. But attitudes are changing.
Archaeologists race to save a Buddhist site of immense significance in Afghanistan, slated for destruction by a Chinese mining firm.
Artist enfant terrible Aida Makoto on his provocative Tokyo exhibition — and whether there is hope for Japan.
With so many choices, which Indian films are worth watching for beginners?
With the city's first Art Basel event, Hong Kong cements its status as one of the world's leading art centers.
Although punk rock may have lost its edge in the West, it is alive and kicking in much of Asia.
Vietnam has a unique coffee culture with an alluring story. The challenge is finding the right way to tell it.
Donald Richie, American writer on Japan, mentor and humanist, has died at 88.
