https://www.scmp.com/rss/322790/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com It is just three days since the death of Otto Warmbier, following the American tourist’s return in a coma from 17 months’ detention in Pyongyang, and the mood in the North Korea-themed DMZ Bar, in Yangshuo, is distinctly subdued. The backpacker bar, which claims to stay open longer than any other nightspot in the tourist town in southwest China’s Guangxi region and revels in the catchphrase “Get s***faced the North Korean way”, seems anything but raucous as its owner serves drinks to a handful... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2101328/hard-partying-north-korean-tour-groups-spotlight?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2101328/hard-partying-north-korean-tour-groups-spotlight?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 05 Jul 2017 23:30:00 +0000 The old man’s voice is weak and gravelly as he speaks by phone from Phnom Penh about his property deal with Hollywood superstar Angelina Jolie. From the background comes the hubbub of children playing at a family party. “I didn’t want to sell, but the government told me they would take control of the land if I did not,” he says. “In the end, I decided to accept the offer for little money and leave rather than be forced to leave with no money at all.” Yim Tith speaks with an air of resigned... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2077016/how-angelina-jolie-buys-cambodian-jungle-plots?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2077016/how-angelina-jolie-buys-cambodian-jungle-plots?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 09 Mar 2017 03:45:30 +0000 It’s 9am on midsummer’s day in the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region and self-styled animal-welfare crusader Marc Ching is choking back tears as he stands in front of a small group of foreign volunteers in a hotel room 8km from the notorious Yulin dog-meat festival. “Today we are doing something that no other group has done,” says the charismatic 37-year-old Asian American, rallying his supporters ahead of what will be his most ambitious rescue yet. “We are shutting down slaughterhouses in... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2063136/how-yulin-dog-rescuer-marc-ching-went-hero?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2063136/how-yulin-dog-rescuer-marc-ching-went-hero?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 18 Jan 2017 04:45:15 +0000 On a bitingly cold November morning in northeast China, workers in blue boiler suits drag the bloodied skins of hundreds of slaughtered donkeys across a sprawling factory forecourt and leave them out to dry in the winter sunshine. The rural backwater of Dong’e, in Shandong province, is the epicentre of a multibillion-dollar industry that is having a devastating effect on donkey numbers worldwide. Four million young animals – 2.2 million of them outside China – are being killed every year for... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2050424/chinese-health-fad-thats-decimating-donkey?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/long-reads/article/2050424/chinese-health-fad-thats-decimating-donkey?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 30 Nov 2016 22:00:00 +0000 The deserted four-storey block is bleak and austere. Beyond electronic security checkpoints are dank corridors with peeling paintwork, pools of fetid green water and stark dormitory rooms filled with cold steel bunk beds and metal lockers. At the end of each long corridor of about 50 rooms are communal showers, where 20 people at a time would queue to wash side by side, using foot pedals to pump water, and rows of squatting toilets set above open drains running the length of the space. It could... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1955023/life-chinas-migrant-workers-dorm-looks-prison?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/article/1955023/life-chinas-migrant-workers-dorm-looks-prison?utm_source=rss_feed Fri, 27 May 2016 04:30:15 +0000 In a shabby, concrete arena of broken plastic seats, shrill pop music blasts out as a ringmaster in a purple suit uses a metal rod to strike a tiger balancing on top of a large plastic ball and moving in alarming jolts across the ring's dirty floor. The animal snarls half-heartedly as three other tigers stare impassively from a row of stools. Then, one after another, they go through a tired routine of stunts, jumping through hoops and sitting to order before being chased out of the ring into... https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel-leisure/article/1937522/why-1800-tigers-are-rundown-china-park-be?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/magazines/post-magazine/travel-leisure/article/1937522/why-1800-tigers-are-rundown-china-park-be?utm_source=rss_feed Thu, 21 Apr 2016 12:00:15 +0000