"Over the past few decades, 160 million women have vanished from East and South Asia — or, to be more accurate, they were never born at all. Throughout the region, the practice of sex selection — prenatal sex screening followed by selective termination of pregnancies — has yielded a generation packed with boys. From a normal level of 105 boys to 100 girls, the ratio has shifted to 120, 150, and, in some cases, nearly 200 boys born for every 100 girls. In some countries, like South Korea, ratios spiked and are now returning to normal. But sex selection is on the rise in Eastern Europe, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East." American journalist Mara Hvistendahl's new book: "Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men," examines and tries to predict the actual and potential effects of unequal sex ratios on men, women and the social economies of the affected regions, including the recent spike in sex trafficking and bride-buying across Asia. More. [more inside]
posted by zarq on Jun 10, 2011 - 65 comments

Asian Horror Movies.com. 100's of free, streaming video, full movies, which have English subtitles. Index of titles updated regularly. Japanese, Korean, Thai. Includes a wide variety of films from an eccentric fantasy like 100% Wool to a psychological thriller like Angel Dust. [more inside]
posted by nickyskye on Jan 25, 2009 - 52 comments

Plant Cultures - central aim ... is to convey the richness and complexity of links between Britain and South Asia, through the story of plants and people
posted by Gyan on Nov 12, 2005 - 2 comments

What's it like to live in a war zone in Nepal? 'What happened to us happens to the people of Bajura every day, and they get it from both sides ' Some stories of the disappeared. From the consistently high quality Nepali Times, along with articles about Maoist radio and the human rights of the Kumari 'living goddess'.
Some background : Who are the Nepalese Maoists? (Q & A); the royal massacre of 2001; historical background to Nepal's democracy - the democratic revolution of 1989-91 and subsequent events; the kings of Nepal (note that dates are given using the local calendar); a potted history of Nepal referring to the role of the Rana family of hereditary ministers, who acted as a conservative 'shadow monarchy' over successive weak kings, from the Kot Massacre of 1846 which eliminated all rival claimants, until about 1950 (when King Tribhuvan famously famously took refuge in the Indian embassy - by a twist of fate, his infant grandson briefly crowned king by the Ranas - Gyanendra was again crowned king after his brother was killed in the 2001 royal massacre); a Nepal timeline; how ethnicity and caste fit into Nepalese society (discrimination in Nepal); Bhutanese refugees in Nepal; the Indian Naxalites and the Maoists.
posted by plep on Oct 9, 2004 - 10 comments

The trade in stolen Asian relics is booming. TIME reports on how cultural sites are being looted and precious artifacts smuggled overseas. Sometimes they're returned, but much of Asia's cultural heritage is being lost.
posted by homunculus on Oct 26, 2003 - 9 comments

In Ghostly Japan, by Lafcadio Hearn, an "American author who lived in Japan, becoming a naturalized citizen, from 1891. His 1904 volume Kwaidan: Stories and Studies of Strange Things is perhaps the work for which he is best known today; it continues to serve as an introduction of non-Western supernaturalism to a Western audience".[more]
posted by hama7 on Mar 13, 2003 - 15 comments