Life Style

A gleaming spiral staircase protruding from the roof of a former Dutch warehouse overlooks a port where millions of Europeans, among them Albert Einstein, once boarded ships bound for a new life in the United States.The staircase, called The Tornado and intended to represent migrants’ unexpected journeys, sweeps up from the ground floor of the Fenix Museum of Migration, with the city of Rotterdam, water and people reflected in its whirlwind of shiny metal surfaces.The newest attraction on Rotterdam’s waterfront, the museum tells the story of migration in 16,000 square metres of exhibits including artworks, photos and personal items.Among the exhibits is a labyrinth of thousands of travellers’ suitcases, portraits of refugees and a colourfully painted city bus from New York.Chinese architec...

Russian filmmaker Roman “Roma” Liberov had long been fascinated by writers who fled his country after the 1917 Russian Revolution. He never imagined that he would one day become an exile himself.In January 2021, in the midst of the Covid pandemic, Liberov left Russia because of a powerful conviction that its people had become “hostages of the state” and that a long-simmering conflict with Ukraine would erupt into full-scale war.Thirteen months later, his fears became reality when Russia invaded its neighbour.In 2023, he was designated a “foreign agent”, making it very risky to return. Yet even now, he says he suffers doubts, and wonders whether he should have stayed.Russian pianist Pavel Kushnir died in a Siberian prison in July 2024, where he had launched a hunger strike while awaiting tr...

When Adam Brody became the internet’s boyfriend a few months back, people started acting weird around Leighton Meester.Of course, long before audiences became obsessed with Brody’s turn as a hot rabbi in Netflix’s Nobody Wants This, both he and Meester were cemented in the pop culture firmament as teen drama icons.She was Gossip Girl’s Blair Waldorf. He was The OC’s Seth Cohen. And it warmed everyone’s cold little hearts that actors from two beloved mid-aughts shows had ended up together in real life.But when the couple – who have been married since 2014 – showed up at the Golden Globes in January, the vibes were off. Reporters on the red carpet could not stop fawning over Brody during interviews, to the point where he had to step in and attempt to make things less awkward.“Your date is th...

The 1.3 billion Catholic Christians around the world welcomed Leo XIV as their new leader this month following the death of the widely loved Pope Francis.It was in the middle of the last century that new popes began to choose papal names that communicate the aim of their papacy. The new pope said he had selected his name partly to honour Leo XIII, who was pope from 1878 to 1903, for his dedication to social issues and workers’ rights.In the choice of his name, Leo XIV may be signalling the direction of the Roman Catholic Church under his reign – a church that looks out for the powerless, the poor and downtrodden.Given the traditional name taboo among the Chinese, where addressing people by their birth names in informal settings was simply not done and even rude, Chinese monarchs were never...

It is a drizzly and overcast Saturday morning in Hong Kong where, despite the gusting winds, many runners are training along the Central Harbourfront.At the AIA Vitality Hub – a venue on the harbourfront that offers free daily health and fitness classes – a dozen runners have gathered for an hour-long class led by ultrarunner Wong Chun-kiu.At 40, Wong is fit, experienced and ready to share the skills he has learned. He opens the session with stretching and running drills.“When you run, try to use the force of gravity that you can feel when you lean forward,” he instructs the students, who range in age from their 20s to over 60. “Also, focus more on lifting your knees up from the ground, rather than kicking your feet back.”Wong (left) leads a running class in Central. Photo: Jonathan WongWa...

James Bond creator Ian Fleming did not need to write about Cold War intrigue to consider the ways people scheme against each other. The Shameful Dream, a rare Fleming work published this week, is a short story about a Londoner named Bone, Caffery Bone.Fleming’s protagonist is the literary editor of Our World, a periodical “designed to bring power and social advancement to Lord Ower”, its owner.Bone has been summoned to spend Saturday evening with Lord and Lady Ower, taken there in a chauffeur-driven Rolls-Royce.Bone suspects, with a feeling of “inevitable doom”, that he is to meet the same fate of so many employed by Lord Ower – removed from his job and soon forgotten.“For Lord Ower sacked everyone sooner or later, harshly if they belonged to no union or with a fat check if they did and we...

The first years of a child’s life are crucial when it comes to preventing obesity in later years, according to researchers.Experts in the Netherlands found body mass index (BMI) at age six is a better predictor of obesity in later life than at other points in childhood.They suggest the first years of life are a “fantastic opportunity to intervene” and give youngsters a “chance at a happy, healthy” future.Researchers used data from an ongoing study known as Generation R to track the BMI of thousands of children in the Netherlands at age two, six, 10, 14, and 18.Of the 3,528 youngsters, some 32.3 per cent were considered overweight or obese at age two, with 22.3 per cent obese at age six, 24.7 per cent at age 10, and 20.6 per cent at age 14.Many of these children were still classed as overwe...

Lead cast: Jo Bo-ah, Lee Jae-wook, Uhm Ji-won, Jung Ga-ramJo Bo-ah (Tale of the Nine-Tailed) and Lee Jae-wook (Alchemy of Souls) team up for the Netflix period drama Dear Hongrang, a lavishly produced mystery based on the Jang Da-hye novel Tangeum: Swallowing Gold.Hongrang is the name of a boy born into the Min Family – a guild of powerful merchants – who disappeared as a young child, devastating his family, particularly his half-sister Jae-yi (Jo), who shared an unusually close bond with him.Given the influence and wealth of the family, many impostors have shown up over the years but all have been readily dismissed; then, 12 years on from the disappearance, a 20-year-old man – played by Lee – appears on their doorstep.Although he claims to have no memory of his childhood, the man is insta...

Actress Song Ji-hyo takes on the challenge of becoming a haenyeo, a woman free diver who harvests seafood, on South Korea’s Jeju Island in the JTBC-BBC joint documentary series Deep Dive Korea: Song Ji-hyo’s Haenyeo Adventure.In the three-part documentary, Song – best known for her appearance in Korea’s longest-running variety show, Running Man – free dives alongside the veteran female divers with whom she shares a unique bond.They are women who, even into their eighties, dive as deep as 20 metres (66 feet) without oxygen masks or modern equipment to collect shellfish to support both their families and their way of life. Recently, the Netflix series When Life Gives You Tangerines featured the story of the haenyeo, drawing significant public interest.The actress, whose aunt was a haenyeo, r...

The Golden Globe- and Emmy-winning actor Stanley Tucci is once again roaming through the land of his heritage in National Geographic’s new food-travel series Tucci in Italy, less than three years after a similar show was axed.“I think that visually it’s more interesting this time around, and I think that we try to go more in-depth into the stories as much as you can, given the format,” he says.Tucci goes from a three-Michelin-star restaurant in Milan where the staff grow their own vegetables – “Stop it!” he half-heartedly begs a chef adding salmon eggs to a pesto risotto – to cooking fish for anglers on the banks of the Sarca River, in the Italian Alps.“I’m exploring the complex connections between the land, the people and the food they eat to discover the essence of each region in the cou...