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Time Out
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
Heard of them? These are Asia's most underrated museums
There are many blockbuster museums in Asia that we'd recommend to any traveller: the ArtScience Museum, the Hong Kong Film Archive, and the Thailand-Burma Railway Centre, among others. But if you've ticked these off your list or are simply in search of something more quaint, then we've got a list of unsung heroes for you. For International Museum Day (May 18), our team of global editors pitched in for a round-up of the world's most underrated museums. Three spots from Asia made the list, ranging from quirky miniature museums to larger-than-life playgrounds for naturalists. The first is the Miniature Museum Small Worlds in Tokyo, a stinking cute museum featuring small-scale reproductions of real-world and fictional places. Gallery A has seven zones to explore, including a miniature diorama of Kansai International Airport and a small-scale recreation of Tokyo's Azabu-Juban neighbourhood from the '90s Sailor Moon manga. We're always amazed at the intricacy and artistry on display: these tiny exhibits are complete with sound, light, and moving parts. And here's a cool bit: you can create a small-scale model of yourself to place into the miniature world for a whole year for just ¥2,000. Love instant noodles? There's a museum dedicated to cup noodles in Osaka called (what else?) the Cupnoodles Museum. Learn about the history of cup noodles, the creative thinking process of inventor Momofuku Ando, and even create your own cup noodle at the My Cupnoodles Factory. Don't miss out on Noodles Bazaar, where you can slurp noodle dishes and down canned drinks from around the world. If National Geographic and BBC Earth count among your favourite channels, then you'll love this natural history museum in Singapore. The Lee Kong Chiang Natural History Museum is low-key, but houses one of the largest collections of Southeast Asian animals in the region. Trace the history of life on Earth through 15 zones featuring specimens of plants, amphibians, mammals, and dinosaurs. Some of the most impressive exhibits: a trio of diplodocid sauropod dinosaur fossils and a skeleton of a female sperm whale found dead off Jurong Island in 2015. The most underrated museums in the world, according to Time Out:
South China Morning Post
23-04-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
Jackie Chan and Jet Li played kung fu hero Wong Fei-hung in film, but what's the story behind the legend?
Po Fung spent 20 years researching the life and times of the legendary martial arts master and medicine man Wong Fei-hung . But, 'over the past century, his life has been added to, layer upon layer,' says Po, ahead of the 100th anniversary of Wong's death this week, on April 17. 'There are no real records, no recordings, not even a photo of him.' Advertisement The no-photo claim is contested, and even the date of his passing has been called into question. What is not disputed, however, is the outsize effect this man from Guangdong has had on Chinese culture over the past 100 years. Kwan Tak-hing (right) plays the title role in The Story of Wong Fei-hung, Part 1 (1949). Photo: courtesy Youqiao Film Company According to academics such as Po, a noted film critic and former research officer at the Hong Kong Film Archive (HKFA), currently relaxing into retirement in Taiwan, Wong died impoverished and embittered in 1925, not knowing he would posthumously become a hero. In the century since his death, the martial artist has been the inspiration for a continuous stream of novels and comics, and more than 100 movies and television series stretching back to the first film to use his character, Wu Pang's The Story of Wong Fei-hung, Part 1, released in Hong Kong in 1949. Jackie Chan reprised Wong's character in 1978's Drunken Master , Jet Li followed suit in Once Upon a Time in China , in 1991, and, more recently, Eddie Peng Yu-yan took a turn in 2014's Rise of the Legend As a master of the southern style of kung fu, hung ga in particular, Wong passed on teachings still followed by hundreds of thousands of students across the globe, 'but what do we know about him as a man?' asks Po. 'We don't know much, so I guess that allows people to create whomever they want from him.' Jet Li in a still from Once Upon a Time in China (1991). Photo: courtesy Golden Harvest Most agree Wong was born around 1847 in the village of Luzhou, in Guangdong province, into a family deeply rooted in martial arts. His father, Wong Kei-ying, was one of the 'Ten Tigers of Canton', a group of martial artists who traced their skills and teachings back to the legendary Southern Shaolin monastery, said to have existed in the Tang dynasty (AD618-907). Advertisement
