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Picture of the Day

In Japan you can hire actors to pose as short/longterm spouses, children, friends, etc. A man was hired to pose as a girl’s missing father by her mother for over 8 years without his “daughter” knowing

37-year-old Ishii Yuichi is a father to over 25 families and a husband to over 600 women – but none of them are his real family members.

Together with the 1,200 actors he employs at his company Family Romance, he has played every part from stand-in father for a wedding, missing dad to long lost son and even make-believe groom in his job as a companion for hire.

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Picture of the Day

Midsummer Celebration, Stockholm, Sweden, 1970

Midsummer takes place in June and is a celebration of the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. It is one of the most celebrated holidays in Sweden with offices and many shops closed.

How much of Midsommar (movie) is real tradition?

The main idea is about the same as the movie: it’s held on the summer solstice in celebration of the longest day of the year and originated as a pagan fertility festival.

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Picture of the Day

Suneung

Every November in South Korea, there’s a day where everyone makes silence to help students concentrate for their most important exam of their lives. Planes are grounded, constructions are paused, banks close and even military training ceases. This day is called Suneung.

The infamous Suneung, an abbreviation for College Scholastic Ability Test (CSAT) in Korean, is an eight-hour marathon of back-to-back exams, which not only dictates whether the students will go to university, but can affect their job prospects, income, where they will live and even future relationships.

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Picture of the Day

south korean plastic surgery

Many Chinese medical tourists who go to South Korea for inexpensive and high quality plastic surgery have difficulty re-entering China due to their passports photos not matching their new face post op.

According to Korean sites, some Korean hospitals are now issuing a “plastic surgery certificate” at the request of overseas visitors. Customs officials, of course, are strict about making sure people match the mugs in their passports. These certificates can supposedly help make clearing immigration go smoother so officials don’t have to call hospitals to confirm procedures.

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Picture of the Day

Wong Tat-ming, 63, sits in his “coffin home” which is next to a set of grimy toilets in Hong Kong as he pays HK$2,400 ($310) a month for a compartment measuring three feet by six feet.

It is crammed with all his meager possessions, including a sleeping bag, small color TV and electric fan.

There is a “dark side to the property boom in wealthy Hong Kong, where hundreds of thousands of people priced out of the market must live in partitioned apartments, ‘coffin homes’ and other inadequate housing.”

These residents are among an estimated 200,000 people in Hong Kong living in such tiny subdivided units, some so small that a person cannot even fully stretch out their legs.

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Picture of the Day

eagle hunter

Young Mongolian Girl with her Hunting Golden Eagle

During the communist period in Kazakhstan, many Kazakhs fled for Mongolia to avoid being forced to abandon their nomadic lifestyle and sent to collective farms.

They settled in Bayan-Ölgii Province and bringing with them their tradition of hunting with eagles.

There are an estimated 250 eagle hunters in Bayan-Ölgii, which is located in the Altai Mountains of western Mongolia.

Their falconry custom involves hunting with golden eagles on horseback, and they primarily hunt red foxes and corsac foxes.

They use eagles to hunt foxes and hares during the cold winter months when it is easier to see the gold colored foxes against the snow.

Each October, Kazakh eagle hunting customs are displayed at the annual Golden Eagle Festival.

Although the Kazakh government has made efforts to lure the practitioners of these Kazakh traditions back to Kazakhstan, most Kazakhs have remained in Mongolia.

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Picture of the Day

halden prison norway

This is a Nordic prison, which focuses on rehabilitation rather than punishment

The 250 inmates here are locked in their cells for 12 hours a day. But those cells are private rooms, with wood furniture, a shower, a fridge and a flat-screen TV.

Norway spends $90,000 a year to house each prisoner — three times what is spent on inmates in the United States.

The recidivism rate is less than 30 percent, half of what it is in the U.S. And there are more than 2.2 million Americans in prison; Norway’s prison population is one-tenth that, on a per capita basis.

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Picture of the Day

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern greets Maori Party co-leader Rawiri Waititi before sworn in 53rd Parliament

The ‘Hongi’ is a traditional Maori greeting in New Zealand used by the Maori people. To hongi you press your nose and forehead together with the nose and forehead of the person you are greeting. Many people of Maori decent prefer to hongi, instead of shaking hands.

The origins of the hongi can be traced back in Maori folklore to the creation of mankind. The first woman created by the gods was Hineahuone, “earth formed woman” so called as she was shaped out of the earth. The god Tane embraced Hineahuone and breathed life into her nostrils.

When Māori greet one another by pressing noses, the tradition of sharing the breath of life is considered to have come directly from the gods. Through the exchange of this physical greeting, one is no longer considered manuhiri (“a visitor”) but rather tangata whenua, “one of the people of the land”.