https://www.scmp.com/rss/502927/feed en https://assets.i-scmp.com/static/img/icons/scmp-meta-1200x630.png https://www.scmp.com A cafe in Vienna’s ninth district offers a unique blend of culinary expertise and social purpose. Staffed mostly with people older than 60, the Vollpension Cafe (German for “full board cafe”) has garnered a reputation for being somewhat like a grandparents’ living room, and has become a popular meeting place for both young and old. Its interior features classic-yet-rugged sofas, paintings and embroideries, small vases, walls decorated with old photographs, and shelves of porcelain animal... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3250985/cafe-vienna-hires-mostly-over-60s-hit-its-cakes-and-traditional-recipes-and-makes-statement-against?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3250985/cafe-vienna-hires-mostly-over-60s-hit-its-cakes-and-traditional-recipes-and-makes-statement-against?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 06 Feb 2024 08:15:08 +0000 Der Wiener Deewan, a Pakistani restaurant in the ninth district of the Austrian capital Vienna, has proved a successful social experiment. It presents no prices for the food it serves and its motto, painted in bold green lettering above the door, is “All you can eat, pay as you wish”. It’s up to the customers to decide what the food quality and meal experience are worth. The restaurant was established in 2005 by Afzaal Deewan, 58, who had arrived in Austria as a single, 40-year-old immigrant... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3197435/all-you-can-eat-pay-you-wish-buffet-restaurant-trusts-its-customers-decide-what-meal-worth-still?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3197435/all-you-can-eat-pay-you-wish-buffet-restaurant-trusts-its-customers-decide-what-meal-worth-still?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 31 Oct 2022 04:45:10 +0000 About 2.5 million Afghans are scattered around the globe, in the United States, parts of Europe, Australia and Southeast Asia, making them the second largest refugee population in the world, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). Many fled the country in the years following the US invasion in 2001, due to economic and security instability. More than 14,000 have settled in the Indian capital of New Delhi. Many run bakery stores, medicine shops and restaurants in... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/people/article/3145675/afghan-refugees-india-and-indonesia-speak-out-am-i-human-or-not?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/people/article/3145675/afghan-refugees-india-and-indonesia-speak-out-am-i-human-or-not?utm_source=rss_feed Sun, 22 Aug 2021 01:30:04 +0000 In the early spring of 1962, British writer V.S Naipaul travelled to Kashmir from New Delhi. He had travelled to India to write An Area of Darkness (1964), the first book in what would become his Indian travelogue trilogy. In Kashmir, he stayed on the first floor of a small hotel in the middle of Dal Lake. The Hotel Leeward – at that time spelled Liward – was the inspiration for the chapter “The Doll’s House on the Dal Lake” in An Area of Darkness. For Naipaul, Kashmir was a rest stop on his... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3144892/when-author-vs-naipaul-stayed-kashmirs-dal-lake-and?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/travel-leisure/article/3144892/when-author-vs-naipaul-stayed-kashmirs-dal-lake-and?utm_source=rss_feed Mon, 16 Aug 2021 04:15:09 +0000 At the height of the coronavirus pandemic, millions of people around the world felt the strain of being confined for weeks and months on end as lockdowns took hold. For Ghulam Mohammad Dar, 51, such restrictions have been a fact of life for 40 years. Dar grew up in a village in Manasbal, about 65km from Srinagar in Indian Kashmir. He was a child when his parents first noticed his limbs becoming deformed. In the summer, Dar’s skin would appear bruised or chafed before healing in the winter. “It... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3135297/indias-forgotten-lepers-have-been-quarantined-all?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3135297/indias-forgotten-lepers-have-been-quarantined-all?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 29 May 2021 10:00:11 +0000 Mohammed Ali Bhat spent more than two decades in jail for a crime he did not commit. On June 12, 1996, the Kashmiri Muslim carpet seller was arrested in Nepal. He was later brought to New Delhi, where – along with two other Kashmiri businessmen – he was charged with being involved in bomb blasts that had killed 27 people in the states of Delhi and Rajasthan the previous month. Prosecutors said Bhat and the others had provided arms and logistics support to the bombers. Bhat claims he was... https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3098300/unjustly-jailed-india-mohammed-ali-bhats-ordeal-highlights?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3098300/unjustly-jailed-india-mohammed-ali-bhats-ordeal-highlights?utm_source=rss_feed Sat, 22 Aug 2020 08:00:08 +0000 The pashmina shawl has delighted women around the world for centuries, from Emperor Napoleon’s wife Josephine to queens and princesses of the British royal family. Empress Josephine, it is said, owned more than 60 of the wraps and her love of them turned the covering into an item of high fashion across Europe. “At the beginning of the 19th century, wealthy Europeans embraced Kashmiri shawl cloth with as much enthusiasm as Americans who discovered polyester fleece at the end of the 20th century,”... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/fashion-beauty/article/3093634/your-handmade-pashmina-shawl-could-be-made-machine-one?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/fashion-beauty/article/3093634/your-handmade-pashmina-shawl-could-be-made-machine-one?utm_source=rss_feed Tue, 21 Jul 2020 00:15:16 +0000 “When I was first pushed into this, unlike other girls I did not resist,” Rekha says, tears welling in her eyes. “Other girls who tried to run away or were not cooperating were beaten by the kotha maliks [brothel owners] as if they were not human.” Rekha saw no way to escape her demeaning life as a sex worker. “It was a river of fire on one side and bed of thorns on the other. Where would I run to?” One of more than 5,000 women plying their trade in Garstin Bastion Road – commonly known as GB... https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/family-relationships/article/3040225/indian-sex-worker-new-delhis-main-red-light-district?utm_source=rss_feed https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/family-relationships/article/3040225/indian-sex-worker-new-delhis-main-red-light-district?utm_source=rss_feed Wed, 04 Dec 2019 02:15:05 +0000