In the small rice-farming village in Vietnam where I grew up, every household had an altar. On each altar there would often be an incense bowl spilling with ash, an offering of tea and fruit, and a black-and-white portrait of a deceased grandparent.
On death anniversaries and Lunar New Year celebrations…
A friend had said there was a new boxing gym just past the Japanese Bridge in Phnom Penh. Paddy Carson, a former bare-knuckle champion from Durban, had recently moved from Pattaya, Thailand, and opened the Angkor Youth Boxing Club in a sweltering old warehouse on the northern edge of Cambodia’s capital.
The Asakusa district of east Tokyo, where I took all but one of these images, is a thriving sightseeing hub attracting primarily Chinese and other Asian visitors. But tourism here is not new. The area and its massive temple, Sensoji, has been the backdrop for the sometimes peculiar proclivities…