Culture

Illuminating the molecular ballet in living cells, Charting the voyage of marine plastics, A glimpse into the origins of life & Earliest human journeys to Asia. Plus Submissions open for Asia Research News 2024. Read all in the latest Editor's Choice.

From big, permanent structures within imambaras to palm-sized ones made of cigarette boxes and coloured paper, tazias are replicas of the tomb of Imam Hussain which play a significant role in the rituals observed during Muharram. They were initially popularised by the Mughals for those royals who were unable to visit the actual tomb but the tradition continues, even today, when photographic images of the tomb are widely available — as a mode of creative expression or, perhaps more, as a performance of homage.

New findings from a cave in northern Laos add to a growing body of evidence that modern humans arrived in Southeast Asia over 80,000 years ago, tens of thousands of years earlier than previously thought.

Elaborately carved with female figures and floral motifs, ringstones dating to the 3rd and 2nd centuries BC are amongst the most enigmatic artefacts of Mauryan and Shunga art. Scholars continue to speculate about their use, and believe that they may have been used as amulets and ritualistic objects or designators. Discover more about these ancient artefacts through this article.

Tam Pà Ling, a cave in northern Laos, reveals new secrets about our earliest human journeys from Africa through to Australia.

Beginning in the fifteenth century, until the nineteenth century, artists turned to classical music for inspiration, combining painting, allegory and music to create a genre known as Ragamala painting. Ragas — melodic frameworks central to Indian classical music — date back to nearly the fifth century, and each major raga is meant to evoke a particular mood or atmosphere, a season and a time of day. Ragamala paintings are distinctive for their nuanced depiction of emotions through environmental metaphors and imagery that often includes a hero or a heroine or both.

From its origins as a wide sash worn as a part of ceremonial, military and everyday dress in the Indian subcontinent, to becoming a part of British military clothing that was thought to guard against cholera, the cummerbund has had a storied legacy. Read about how this humble accessory evolved over the years.

In operation from 1863 to 2016, Bourne and Shepherd was one of the first commercial photography studios in India, known for architectural, landscape and topographical photographs, as well as portraits of Indian nobility, British officials and European travellers. While these images found traction as souvenirs, the studio’s photographs were also widely utilised in the scientific community for the topographical and sociological study of the Indian subcontinent.

Born out of the changing society of nineteenth-century Calcutta, Kalighat painting was a popular medium among the patuas (painters) who worked in the vicinity of the Kalighat temple. Though these paintings were originally intended to be souvenirs for devotees visiting the temple and featured primarily Hindu imagery, they expanded over time to include other religious traditions as well as socio-political commentary.

Conclusive evidence of chicken breeding in the Yayoi period of Japan has been discovered from the Karako-Kagi site.

Often regarded as Prophet Muhammad's vehicle in Islamic mythology, the Buraq is a winged creature often depicted with a human head and the body of a horse. It has been depicted in visual art across the Islamic world and continues to be a motif used by artists in the region.

Scientists from Oil Crops Research Institute (OCRI) of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences (CAAS), Anhui Agricultural University (Anhui, China), Newcastle University in Singapore, and Huizhou Comvikin Biotechnology Co., Ltd (Guangdong, China) have developed a green and efficient approach to synthesize highly liposoluble and antioxidant L-ascorbyl esters by immobilized lipases.

Theyyam is a ritualistic performance in the Kolathunadu district of Kerala, India. It is believed to be a physical manifestation of the presence of deities either connected to the Hindu pantheon or derived from folk tales and stories of people who were later deified. Read on to know more about the history and development of Theyyam performances.

Translation and interpretation are commonly perceived in the linguistic sense, changing one language into another language. They however can refer to much beyond as the processes of converting something into a different form. What does it mean by translation, in what senses, and to what extent is there a loss in translation?

Often used by devotees as a meditation tool, Mandalas are symmetrical circular forms that typically comprise a central deity surrounded by motifs and symbols.

Collecting Chinese porcelain as emblems of wealth and taste has a long and rich history. From the Balkans to Iraq and Iran through South Asia and East Africa, nobles and emperors of the 16 century collected Chinese ceramics to showcase them.

Asia Research News monitors the latest research news in Asia. Some highlights that caught our attention this week are a “smart ranch” featuring connected cows, a way to see what a 1 600-year-old woman looked like, and a new bird-like dinosaur.

An Osaka Metropolitan University study found that differences in culture affect when Japanese and American university students feel comfortable providing social support. The researchers found that Japanese university students were less likely than American students to offer assistance to a close friend or family member unless they had been explicitly asked for help, even when they knew that the person needed assistance. There were no differences in providing assistance between Japanese and American students when requests for help were explicitly stated.

Organised by the Academy of Film (AF) at Hong Kong Baptist University (HKBU), the Global University Film Awards (GUFA) 2022 held its magnificent award presentation ceremony in virtual mode on 11 November. The entry from France’s Le Fresnoy clinched the Gold Award.

Asia Research News monitors the latest research news in Asia. Some highlights that caught our attention this week are a bioinspired tiny jumping robot, evidence of gender stereotypes in young children, and the first sighting of a new species of crab.

Indian deities such as the goddess Saraswati were refashioned into syncretic, cross-cultural kami (deities), when Buddhist texts, teachings and philosophies were transmitted to Japan and took on local forms.

Batik is a technique of creating patterns on cloth through wax-resist printing and dyeing and has historically been practised in several parts of the world, including India, China, Southeast Asia and Africa.

Thangka is a devotional scroll-painting tradition, emerging from seventh-century Nepal, in which images of Buddhist deities are painted on scrolls to gain divine merit and to serve as visual aids for teaching and meditating.

Commissioned between 1815-1820, the Fraser Album is considered a defining work of the Company School of painting depicting the people of India.

Asia Research News monitors the latest research news in Asia. Some highlights that caught our attention this week are dogs crying happy tears when their owner comes home, a new early warning system for solar flares, and burial practices that can tell us about ancient migration patterns.

A genre of sculpture developed in the northwest region of the ancient Indian subcontinent in the form of reliefs and freestanding work as expressions of the Buddhist faith.

The history of extracting chay root dye — a natural red colourant — from the chay plant (Oldenlandia umbellata) dates back to at least the seventeenth century. Read on to know more about the relevance of the dye in the textile dyeing practices of southern India.

Students of the Master of Arts in Curating and Art History (MACAH) at Lingnan University in Hong Kong has curated two exhibitions, to be held at Jockey Club Creative Arts Centre (JCCAC) at Shek Kip Mei, Kowloon from 13-21 August 2022. Titled Re · Count and Healing Self Healing respectively, the exhibitions feature works by 10 local and international artists in a variety of mediums such as ceramics, tattoo, and painting. The curatorial team hopes to create an introspective space for the audience to reflect upon their psyche amidst exhausting and often frustrating social lives.

Asia Research News monitors the latest research news in Asia. Some highlights that caught our attention this week are amino acids from space, a robot finger wrapped in human skin, and what makes dogs "man’s best friend".

Division of Electronics & Information System Principal Researcher (and guest professor at Seoul National University) Jinhyo Joseph Yun’s team at DGIST conducted joint research with the Nanjing University of Science and Technology’s Professor Lei Ma’s team and the UK Cardiff Metropolitan University’s Professor Zheng Liu’s team on the delivery platform industry, which is becoming a new issue for the 21st century market economy. The teams published an international joint research paper in the ‘European Planning Studies,’ which will be out in May of 2022 in the UK.