Southeast Asia

Spicy Auntie has been watching Japanese scouts evolve for years, and let me tell you: this is no longer about sleazy men loitering outside train stations with a laminated club menu and a fake smile. The modern scout is digital, data-driven, and frighteningly efficient. If you imagine Kabukicho scouting as some analogue relic of the bubble era, you’re already behind the curve. Today’s scouts don’t need to shout at women on the street. They slide into DMs. They stalk Instagram stories, TikTok clips, X posts. They know who just moved...

I’ll say it upfront: I’m a big fan. Not in the “oh this is nicely made” way, but in the “why am I still thinking about that pause in episode four?” way. Heated Rivalry has crawled under my skin and refused to leave, and honestly, good for it. Auntie respects a series that knows exactly what it’s doing and has the nerve to do it slowly. Let’s clear one thing first. This is not about hockey. If you came for slapshots and locker-room bravado, you’ll stay for the unbearable tension,...

I’ve lost count of how many times men—usually smug, usually underwhelming—have told me that men are “visual creatures” and therefore need porn stars with impossible bodies and Olympic flexibility. Darling, if that were true, Asia would look very different after dark. What Asian men actually click on, linger over, and return to again and again is not the spectacular. It’s the plausible. It’s the woman who looks like she could borrow your charger and complain about the aircon. This does not surprise Auntie in the slightest. For decades, Asian societies...

Spicy Auntie has seen this movie before, and honestly, I could recite the dialogue in my sleep. Sexy dangdut singer appears. Hips move. Men cheer. Phones come out. Someone yells “haram”. Someone else yells “culture”. Cue apologies, moral outrage, calls for punishment, and a sudden national panic about the collapse of civilisation — all triggered by a woman doing her job on a stage. What amused me this time is the performance of shock. As if Indonesia woke up yesterday and discovered that dangdut involves bodies. As if villagers have...

Hollywood? Pixar? Disney? Princesses, princesses, mermaids, sparkly eyelashes and sidekicks who exist mainly to applaud? Pffff. Auntie yawns. Give me the girls and women of Studio Ghibli any day, every day, preferably with wind in their hair, dirt under their nails, and absolutely no interest in being “chosen.” What I love about Ghibli women—those created by the wonderfully stubborn Hayao Miyazaki—is that they don’t perform strength. They live it. They work. They get tired. They get scared. They mess up. They don’t strike power poses or announce themselves as icons....