Amika's Asian Studies blog

On Twitter a couple of days ago, I read a story about a guy named John Chau that was killed on a forbidden island in the Bay of Bengal. I read that he was trying to convert the island's residents into Christianity. The Island is called North Sentinel Island and the islanders I've read had a history of repelling outsiders. Indian authorities, along with the fisherman who saw John's body are now trying to figure out how to recover his body. "We have mapped the area with the help of these fishermen. We have not spotted the body yet but we roughly know the area where he is believe to be buried," said Dependra Pathak, a police official in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The Sentinelese is considered to be one of the most isolated tribes so his body could be anywhere. Dependra said the group spotted several tribe members carrying bows and arrows walking around the same area where the fishermen said he saw John's body being dragged and buried.

For a woman named Yuki in Malaysia, it is either "cannabis or die". The article talks about a woman named Yuki who relies on smoking weed to help ease her pain from hypokalemia. Malaysia could be considered one of the harshest drug law country. Having a single cannabis plant in your home can result in prison time for life and possession of more than 200g could result in a death sentence. Yuki turned to weed because it helped her deal with her pain, she felt instantly better when she smoked. In her own words, she felt liberated. After several arrests for the possession of marijuana, including her whole entire family being held in a jell cell, Yuki decided to be the face of the campaign to reform Malaysia's drug laws. Since she has become an advocate for marijuana use, she has helped one of her friends escape the death penalty for possession of marijuana. In October, the government announced that it was going to abolish the death penalty completely, but "suspects"

In an article that I found, it told a story about a widow retelling the story of how her husband died because he was overworked. The widow talked about how her husband worked at a food supplier specializing in jangjorim (a Korean side dish). His job was to make sure that production was up to standard and on time. He traveled all the time to oversee production as well. Her husband even worked on Saturdays. The morning before he died, he complained about feeling tired. Around 7pm, his co workers found him collapsed at his office. He was on of hundreds of people in 2017 who died due to being overworked (according to government data). The article also mentioned that South Korea work more hours per week than other countries (OECD countries). Because of the death rate due to overwork in South Korea, in July, the government legislated to reduce the maximum working hours from 68 to 40. President Moon Jae-in said that it would be an "important opportunity to move away from a society of ove