Stories about Culture
21 October 2018
Digging up the lost George Lucas Japanese 1980s TV commercials
Japanese Twitter has unearthed a series of 1980s Japanese TV commercials featuring George Lucas singing the praises of consumer electronics giant Panasonic.
17 October 2018
Hong Kong Free Expression Week features Umbrella Movement activists and political cartoonist Badiucao
In recent years, Hong Kongers who support democratic rights and territorial independence have faced fierce repression.
14 October 2018
For these Iranian twin-sister artists, collaboration is “like one person working with her other self”
"'Reincarnation' implies a new life. If we can make the audience wake up and realize the world around them and see the beauty in it, it is a huge success."
12 October 2018
The 19th century best-selling author excluded by the Brazilian Academy of Letters
Writer and novelist Júlia Lopes de Almeida was "the first and most emblematic example of [an] institutional vacuum caused by the gender barrier" in Brazil.
5 October 2018
‘My message is my car': Afghan innovator challenges youth to make something from nothing
"Just start your work. Do your work with what you have now. It's time to start."
1 October 2018
Operation Leave Home: a new social media trend encourages young Angolans to fly the coop
"At this moment, I am on the street crying without knowing where to go."
Ken ‘Professor’ Philmore, Trinidadian musician who took steel pan music ‘by storm’, dies
"This is the equivalent of a Brahms, Bach or Beethoven passing. This is huge. This is a loss."
26 September 2018
Fifty years after the Mexican Movement of 1968, students continue their march against violence and impunity
"We are the grandchildren of '68".
As Colombia's peace process falters, scores of social activists are being killed
"How much longer [will this go on] and how many more [will die]?"
25 September 2018
A new indie film festival features the struggles and triumphs of indigenous Papua, Indonesia
The film festival "highlights the issues of the indigenous people of Papua through documentary films as well as to build public awareness of the important issues impacting them.”
20 September 2018
A film about a Montenegrin freedom fighter seeks to keep anti-fascist values alive
"By sharing the story of an ordinary person's struggle, we wanted to remind younger generations how the rights we now enjoy were won..."
Uighurs in the laogai: how China's persecution of a minority turned my fiction into fact
"In 2017, 21% of all arrests made in China took place in Xinjiang Province, a region where only 1.5% of the Chinese population lives."
While some Brazilians tried to school Germans on Nazism, others apologized in shame
Were the Nazis socialists? A video posted by a German Consulate in Brazil has reignited discussion among Brazilians of this historical misconception.
18 September 2018
At the peak of the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season, Jamaicans remember ‘Wild Gilbert’
Jamaicans can't recall a storm worse than Gilbert in 1988 -- and as this year's Atlantic hurricane season gets active, they hope they won't have to.
In Syria, regime loyalists use art as a tool of war
"Since the early days of the revolution, the Syrian regime has idolized and romanticized a military state"
Kyrgyz artist calls on girls to ‘create our own freedom’ in breakout song, *drops mic*
Zere's debut hit 'Kyz' comes after years of debate over how women in the Central Asian country should dress and behave.
15 September 2018
Protestors artfully demand the release of Shahidul Alam, Bangladesh's prisoner of conscience
"When a regime is governed by nothing but fear, it is often a sign that the regime might have lost its plot."
13 September 2018
Japan’s vending machines strike again—this time with pizza and crepes
There is one vending machine for every 23 people in Japan and they still never fail to surprise.
‘Bien Chabacano’ blog preserves and promotes Asia's only Spanish-based creole language
"Unless more aggressive preservation efforts will be implemented, the day will come when Chabacano will only be spoken inside the home."
10 September 2018
Jamaica finds new appreciation for beloved cultural icon and language activist, ‘Miss Lou’
"Underneath her wily comedic style, she forced the society to face unpleasant truths. But it is the unapologetic championing of the Jamaican language that so endeared her to many Jamaicans."
