Asia

We have been reading philosophers from the West and Asia for centuries in search of the secret of happiness. Turns out the Aztecs had it

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Each course Lynn Sebastian Purcell, philosophy professor, repeat the same experiment. After reviewing the passage from the ‘Odyssey’ in which Ulysses renounces an eternal life of pleasures with the nymph Calypso to search for his wife and son, the teacher presents a dilemma to his students: How many would do the same as the king of Ithaca? “How many of you would reject immortality and a pleasant existence on the condition that you never see your family and loved ones again?” defiant spear Purcell to the classroom. The answer is always the same: nobody. The ‘Odyssey’ is an epic poem that connects with the Greco-Latin tradition, but in reality that particular passage about Ulysses summarizes well the vital philosophy of a civilization that lived thousands of kilometers from the Ionian Sea: the aztec. Goal: happiness. I don’t know exactly who you are, but it’s quite likely that you, me and the more than 8 billion Of people who share this world, we agree that it is desirable to have a happy life. Logical, right? Happiness is one of those golden nuggets that philosophy has been searching for for centuries. I did it in times of Epicurus and he does it in our days. In fact one of the most famous treatises of Bertrand Russella famous philosopher of the 20th century, is titled with a phrase that is quite a proclamation: “The conquest of happiness”. The lesson of Ulysses. However, it is one thing to aspire to happiness and another to decide how to achieve it or even what exactly happiness is. This is where the passage from the ‘Odyssey’ of the nymph Calypso. If it’s just about seeking happiness, Ulysses already had it, right? If we agree that the goal is to be happy (just like that), isn’t it a good idea to spend an eternal life, free of illness and deprivation, living with a goddess on a distant paradise island? Why does Ulysses decide to return to the sea… and his hardships? “Let it be worth it”. Ulysses’ attitude (like that of Purcell’s students) connects fully with a philosophical ethic that for decades has gone unnoticed in the West: that of the pre-Columbian Aztecs. For them, remember the teacherwhat humanity really seeks is not so much a life full of happiness and pleasures as “an existence that is worthwhile.” That’s the goal. The texts that are preserved and tell us about how the Aztecs saw the world show that for them humanity faced “an existential problem,” In Purcell’s words: a brief, fickle existence, during which it is impossible to control everything just as it is not to skate in a quagmire. “Slippery is the land”. “What they wanted to say is that, despite our best intentions, our life is prone to error, failure in our objectives and, therefore, to ‘fall’, as if we were going to end up in the mud. Furthermore, this earth is a place where joy comes mixed with pain and setbacks,” explains the professor in an article published by the Philosophy Association (APA). In it he remembers that this entire conception of the world can be summarized in a popular saying: “Slippery, slick is the earth”“slippery, slippery is the earth.” Wait, Aztec philosophy? Exact. It has not been easy to survive and in the West we may not have paid enough attention to it, but that does not mean that the pre-Columbian Aztecs created a valuable philosophical corpus, with different currents and treatises. “We have many volumes of his texts recorded in his native language, Nahuatl,” claims Purcell at the BBC. “While few of the pre-colonial hieroglyphic-type books survived the Spanish burnings, our main sources of knowledge derive from the records made by Catholic priests until the early 17th century.” A different vision. Thanks to them we preserve codices with sayings, exhortations, poems, dialogues… different manifestations that essentially tell us about the same thing: how the Aztecs who lived between the 15th century and the beginning of the 16th approached existence. Good example is the ‘Florentine Codex’a bilingual work by friar Bernardino de Sahagún on pre-Columbian knowledge. His legacy is not only interesting because of what he tells us, it is also interesting, Purcell claimsbecause it opens our eyes to “another pre-modern culture with an ethics of virtues”, one different from the legacy of Aristotle or even Confucius. “Place of joy with fatigue”. At this point the question is obvious… If the Aztecs believed that what humans really want are lives “worthwhile”, even more than joyful and pleasant existences, how to achieve it? How to face the passage through this world, “a place of joy with fatigue and pain”, as an Aztec passage says? The key is in a recipe with four ingredients, four “levels” that allow us to enjoy a rooted life, “neltiliztli”. Continuing with the metaphor of existence as a swampy terrain, full of mud, the idea is to take root to gain a foothold. And how to achieve it? To begin by ‘rooting’ in one’s own body. As Purcell explains, the figurines and descriptions we preserve of the Aztecs show us that they liked to exercise their bodies. In fact, they had a regimen of activities aimed at stretching and strengthening the body that is partly reminiscent of yoga. Rooted in the body, it had to be done at another level: the “psyche”, seeking a balance between the heart and the head, desires and judgment. “Only in the middle can you go, only in the middle can you live”, advises one of his works. Social creatures… and of the earth. In an article Published years ago in Aeon, the scholar of Latin American philosophy points out two more levels at which those who want to achieve a rooted life must work, “neltiliztli”, a term that is also used as “truth” and “goodness.” The first level is “rootedness in the community.” We live surrounded by people, in societies in which we play a role that connects us with others and activates the … Read more

It’s about how Asia is winning the cultural battle

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When I went to China for the first time in November 2023 with other colleagues, one of my travel companions wanted to take advantage of the few free hours we had to buy a Labubu to give to his daughter. I had no idea what he was talking about. He explained it to me and I stayed the same. A couple of years later, the Labubu are such a mainstream phenomenon that POP MART has opened its first store on Gran Vía and They even appear in ‘South Park’, one of the reference adult series in the West of the last 30 years (with permission from The Simpsons). The opening of a POP MART on the most iconic street in Spain, where theaters, popular fashion brands and franchises gather (special mention deserves Uniqlo and Miniso), is just the tip of the iceberg of something: the East is no longer just the factory of the world (with China as a prominent head), its weight has transcended from the industrial to the cultural to sneak into the mainstream of the West. It is a true victory for Asian pop culture, until now concentrated in its own borders with few exceptions that transcended the niche to the popular. The attractive lottery of the closed box. Of David Beckham to Rihanna passing through Dua Lipa either Lisa from Blackpink: They all have their Labubu. Born in 2015 by Hong Kong artist Kasing Lung for his illustrated book series “The Monsters”, the Labubu they exploded when POP MART started releasing them as collectibles in surprise boxes back in 2019. What started as something niche has become a trend that knows no boundaries or classes. They have them to the Thai royal house and when there is stock, it flies: fans crowd at the door in such a way that you don’t know if they are queuing to buy a ticket for a concert or if there is a rare edition. And she can be a millionaire: the human-sized, mint green Labubu has been auctioned for 230,000 Australian dollars. The Labubu as an expression of identity, status and belonging. You don’t know which one you’re going to get until you open them like it’s the reward mechanism in a video game. Of course, Labubu is not just for boys and girls. It reflects changes in consumer culture reaching millennial and generation Z adults thanks to collecting, nostalgia and the need for comfort. You buy more than a doll: it is an experience full of emotion, the status that comes with having the most exclusive edition and of course, the profitability of resale. It is the almost ideal intersection between gaming and finance: a supply and demand market where assets are stuffed. And little joke with this: POP MART has had to suspend sales in cities like london due to fights between fans and the counterfeit market It is already a reality. Whether you see it as a toy or a fashion accessory, what is clear is that Labubu has emerged as the spearhead of the soft power Chinese. China no longer (only) manufactures products, it also manufactures desire A lot of muscle, a little soft power. China is the second largest economy in the world, but in cultural influence it is quite a few steps below. The Asian giant has a legendary cultural heritage of more than 5,000 years, but for the West it is limited to silk or tea. Naming a movie or a movie star comes down to Bruce Lee (American-Hong Kong born in San Francisco). The reasons? Many and varied: from following content guidelines from the Chinese Government and censorship, but also from considering it as lower quality from a prejudiced perception. China is no longer exotic, it’s cool. First it was economically, but China is also opening up culturally to Western markets, more products appear on social networks and Western audiovisuals and the West is welcoming them with open arms. China had started promoting its brands, the New Silk Road wave visa-free entry for tourism, but nothing as effective as an innocent stuffed animal that has transcended thanks to fans, TikTok and celebrities. At a time (actually, it almost doesn’t matter when you read this) when the global perception of China is often shaped by geopolitics and surveillance, Labubu offers something different, adorable, creative and exciting. And they are not alone: ​​the game’Black Myth: Wukong‘ was a global hit in 2024 and more of the same for the ice cream and bubble tea chain Mixueto cite a couple of examples. It may end up being another fad, but right now they are objects of aspiration and desire. It is proof that Chinese cultural products can do it. That POP MART stores are in the most central streets of large cities is another way to demonstrate this. It has taken Labubu a decade to get here, China will probably have a harder time creating a solid narrative around its cultural products such as Nintendo and its Mario universe. But it’s on its way. China begins to look closely at Japan and Korea. The country of the rising sun is famous for its exports of anime, fashion and gastronomy and since 2010 it has in its strategy “Cool Japan“a government strategy to promote its creative industries abroad. However, this initiative has had its ups and downsthe weight of the market and fans in hits like Pokémon or ramen being undoubted. South Korea has what is probably Asia’s latest and most effective softpower model. With strong support from the state, the Korean wave has achieved great successes from the film ‘Parasites’ to the K-pop phenomenon. China with Labubu is another third way, with a commercial ecosystem focused on intellectual property, lifestyle and trends. In Xataka | There are people burning their Labubus in nets. The reason: a crazy theory that links them to a Mesopotamian devil In Xataka | The Labubu’s half-humanity bags are becoming too small. So its creator already knows how to … Read more

Meteorologists are dismayed at the heat wave of Africa and Asia

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“We are witnessing something incredible. By far the most extreme climate phenomenon in world history. Thousands of records are beating brutally from North Africa to Asia. And with margins never seen.” These words They are from Max Herradorone of the greatest public experts in extreme meteorological phenomena. And seeing Maps like the one that opens this articleI don’t lack reason. The best example is Kuwait. According to provisional data, the Kuwaiti city of Mitribah exceeded 46 degrees in April For the first time in history. And, just after, he exceeded 47, then 48 and, finally, he put almost 49. It is not an isolated fact: More than 45 degrees in Egypt, in India or in the Middle East; 45 also in Sudan, 45.7 in Chad, 45.5 in Niger; Central Asia records completely sprayed. We talk about absurdly high temperatures for latitude 30 at this point of the year. In the case of Mitribah they are very close figures to the historical maximum reached. In addition, the heat wave has a huge extension that covers three continents. And, as Herrera points out, everything indicates that the situation It will get worse. Tropical tidbits What is happening? It is a great question. Because heat waves They never come alone. They have serious social implications (more aggressions, more violence, more crimes, more Homicides) In areas of the world that right now are a polvorín: Syria, Israel, Ukraine, Sudan … The problem is that we don’t know very well why all this is happening. A priori, we can think that the same atmospheric dynamics that it has given us an extraordinarily wet March and a much cooler spring of what is usual is the one behind the heat waves of much of Central Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia. After all, in meteorology the masses of air are pieces that play a strategic dance between them and the changes that occur in any part of the world, have effects on the rest. An increasingly uncertain future. I do not know if Herrera is right and we are living one of the most extreme meteorological phenomena in the documented history of the earth. However, it is clear that the situation only complicated. Not only because things are changing very fast, but because we don’t know where it goes. Image | Tropical tidbits In Xataka | 35,000 dead and 46 ºC in the shadow. This was the penultimate great heat wave that devastated Europe

The new Chinese tariffs are a mosquadilla for Apple. It is just what Huawei needed to dominate Asia

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China has not taken to respond to new tariff rates imposed By the Trump administration, further increasing the pressure on this commercial war scenario. The new situation. After the Last climb announced on April 3the tariffs that the United States applies to imported products from China already reach 54%. In reciprocal response, China has announced a new 34%rate package. The US rates enter into force on April 9 and those of China on April 10, with a day of strategic difference. A margin that opens the door to possible last minute negotiations to adjust or avoid the implementation of tariffs, giving time to both countries to search for agreements before the measures impact their economies. In this stage of tariff chaos there are two very important actors for the Chinese market: Huawei and Apple. The golden opportunity for Huawei. Huawei is positioned as a key actor in technological matters with strong government support. At the beginning of 2025 it has become the Second manufacturer in Chinabehind living and just ahead of Apple. Beyond smartphones sales, Huawei is a crucial company for the country in relation to network infrastructure, manufacture of multiplatform semiconductors and software. Currently, the company is a symbol of technological self -sufficiency, both in software and hardware. Huawei recently announced his plans to abandon Android in favor of Harmonyosa system designed for the Asian market (at least, for now), with its own development and without a trace of foreign code. Similarly, the company has been in full commercial fight for years to be competent in the manufacture of semiconductors, currently blocked in seven nanometers lithographybut having achieved your own manufacturing With the support of SMIC, the Chinese giant for chips function. Quota dance. Only 1%market share separate (17%) from Huawei (16%), and with an Apple (15%) that could be out of the map after the entry into force of a new 34%tariff to American products, the scenario that is drawn is that of an absolute leadership by Chinese manufacturers. For Huawei, who has been climbing positions for a few years, it is the best possible scenario. The company is resuming its position in the market thanks to the support of the Chinese government (who has invested in national machinery for chip manufacturing and provides tax exemptions to technology like this). It will not be the only beneficiary. With the exception of Apple, China is a market in which national companies cover full sales photography. I live, Huawei, Oppo and Honor are the best -selling brands, with quite similar figures and market share. China has been a key market for Apple for years. At the end of 2024, this territory meant about 30% of its income. However, in the first quarter of 2025 and in the middle of the commercial war, Chinese participation in Apple’s income fell to 15.83%. An even more aggressive tariff would mean an important setback for the American company, who now faces a complicated scenario in which tariffs to countries like Vietnam or India put their manufacturing and margins strategy in check. Five days of doubt. The reciprocal tariffs between the United States and China threaten to shake the entire world, from the drop in stock market and increase in the manufacturing costs of companies outside technology such as Niketo the hard blow suffered by practically All Big Tech. Next week it will be crucial to know if there is room for negotiation, or if the commercial war is about to start its crudest phase. Image | Xataka In Xataka | Huawei no longer competes: he is building his own parallel reality

The founder of Deepseek has been placed in just two weeks among the greatest fortunes of Asia. But it depends on who you ask

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The presentation of Deepseek R1China’s artificial intelligence model has shaken the foundations on which AI in the West was being built. A priori, this model would have achieved similar results to those of OpenAi, but with only a fraction of its cost of development, something that has then had its nuances. All this Financial tsunami In AI has left a clear winner: Liang Wenfeng, CEO of Deepseek and one of the seven founders of the company. Thanks to the success of its AI model, Wenfeng has become a Milmillonario, although no one knows for sure if their fortune has an assessment of 1,000 million or 150,000 million. It depends on Who is asked. The key is Deepseek. In relative terms, the Fortuna Liang Wenfeng At least 84% of the value assigned to Deepseek amounts to 84%. Therefore, the key is to determine how much Deepseek is valued to establish the fortune of its main owner. The problem is that, just like companies like x Openai, Spacex, Neuralink and many others, the company’s value is not public by not being quoted in the stock market as It is NvidiaApple or Microsoft. In this case, the market price Determine the value of the company. However, in the case of private companies, that value is given by third parties. For example, OpenAi’s different financing rounds have served as a framework to establish an assessment of the company, placing it around 157,000 million, according to Forbes. The same goes for Spacex that, after its last financing round, its investors estimated that the company was worth 350,000 million dollars, As reported Bloomberg. With China it is not so easy. Depseek was created as a secondary research project promoted by Wenfeng within its High-Flyer Investment Company. As published by Forbes, Depseek does not seem to have received third -party investments, so there is no external agent that can offer a founded assessment. Given the opacity of the investments of Chinese companies, the tracking of new assessments becomes complicated. The only alternative that remains to know the estimated value is comparing it with its equivalent rivals. Approximate estimates. As published by Bloomberg, seven AI experts and startup founders have estimated that Deepseek’s value would remain between 2,000 million and 30,000 million dollars, although there are more extreme assessments that give figures between 1,000 and 150,000 million dollars. “It is basically impossible to give a convincing response in this case because it is a private and secret company that is financed internally with the commercial gains of the founder,” declaredBloomberg Jeffrey Emanuel, founder and executive director of the Blockchain Pastel Network Startup. One from Those rival companies which can serve as a reference is Anthropic, which thanks to Amazon financial support He has achieved one 60,000 million assessment. The French Mistral AI also would enter that comparisonand its valuation has been 6,000 million dollarsso the most moderate average range seems to be the closest to the reality of the Chinese company. Estimation of the fortune of Liang Wenfeng. Based on those most conservative estimates, Wenfeng’s fortune would move between 1,680 million and 25.2 billion, only in regards to his participation in Deepseek. However, we must not forget that Depseek is only Wenfeng’s “Side Project”, and that his main job is in high-flyer. Based on financial records, Forbes estimated That the Wenfeng Investment Fund has about 8,000 million in assets, so the company values ​​in about 240 million dollars. Therefore, participation in High-Flyer would contribute about 180 million dollars more to the fortune of Liang Wenfeng, placing it in the select Milmillonarios Club that They have made fortune thanks to the AI. In Xataka | The next border of the super farms is no longer to be Milmillonarios, is to be Billionaires: Musk, Zuckerberg and Bezos are candidates Image | Deepseek

There are more and more brotherhoods buying mantles, sizes and goldsmiths in Southeast Asia

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At the beginning of the year, a group of faithful gave A blue velvet mantle embroidered in gold To the Virgin of Los Angeles de Morón de la Frontera. The idea of ​​the group was for the image to use during its processional exits and the brotherhood of the sovereign power of the town received it willingly. Then the controversy exploded: the mantle They had done it in a Bangladés workshop. Sacred art in Bangladés? This same week, the Sacred Art Associations of Andalusia have launched a statement in which alert proliferation of brotherhood goods “carried out by workshops located in foreign countries such as Pakistan or Bangladesh that not only have low quality but are the result of the plagiarism of work that these artisans.” There are two great reasons for it. The first (and this will not surprise anyone) is money: as calculated at that timethe mantle of the Virgen de los Ángeles would have cost three times more if it had been done in a Spanish workshop. As the associations explainfor years the Cofrade world has been suffering “incessant bombardment (of advertising of) alleged companies that commit to brown pieces, particularly embroidered to the Sevillian stive, in addition to cordonerías, homiatures and galaonerías.” Usually, using “photographs of pieces that we have created” with the aim of trying to confuse the client. They also promise to do it quickly. Because that is the second reason: time. As it seems, of the Three years on average It takes to make a mantle here is a few months. A problem goes beyond embroidery … According to Andalusian artisans, the problem “also” affects other disciplines such as wood size, gold or goldsmiths. ” And, of course, it is the order of the day in products of less artistic interest such as robes, layers, cingles and other belongings. The pressure is huge. … and that is ceasing to be a taboo. What has begun to change in recent years is that the brotherhoods are stopping hiding. The clearest example is the brotherhood of the clemency of Jerez de la Frontera. The brotherhood commissioned the design of the mantle From the Virgin of Health and Hope to a Sevillian designer (Carmelo Argumedo), but the piece was made in Pakistan. In addition, the brotherhood did not hide, The advances by videoconference followed and has caused an effect called among other brotherhoods of the community. What is happening with Holy Week? It is still curious that, As José Luis Losa pointed out in El ConfidencialLast year the Ministry of Culture granted one of the Fine Arts Medals to the Sacred Art Association of Seville for one “History of more than six centuries in which all trades related to sacred art have been maintained uninterruptedly, magnifying artistic heritage.” And it’s normal. Holy Week does not stop growing so much in social weight as in economic and political weight: It is logical that he suffers the same pressures as the rest of the world’s social phenomena. The Great Pegag is where that takes us and, it seems, the first station is in Southeast Asia. Image | Alfredo José Ortiz Garcia | Hamid Roshaan In Xataka | Andalusia is very proud of its Holy Week. So much that he wants to start teaching it in schools

The new fever in China is mobile series with one-minute episodes. And they prepare their landing outside Asia

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Who was going to tell us that Quibithat app that around here we welcomed with joy and which presented series divided into short chapters designed to be consumed vertically or horizontally but always operated from the mobile phone, had been visionary. That Jeffrey Katzenberg invention ended up being a fiasco and a waste of money, but perhaps what really happened to him is that he arrived too soon. Or perhaps that can be inferred from the latest fad in the Chinese market that may end up leaving the Asian market soon: microdramas. What does it consist of? These are small fictions, often with romantic content (but, also in Korean style, sometimes with fantastic elements such as vampires in love or time travel), created for mobile consumption (that is, in vertical format) on platforms. that facilitate quick passage from one episode to another, such as TikTok or YouTube (but also in others less known outside Asia, such as Kuaishou, Douyin or Bilibili), and whose episodes last around one or two minutes. Each series contains between 60 and 100 episodes, meaning the total duration of each series is approximately equivalent to that of a movie. The income. We are not talking about a precisely small market. In 2024 this digital subgenre generated 2,000 million dollars, an amount that could double in 2025. According to Chinese media, we could be talking about 2023 gross revenue of $5.2 billion per yearwhich is equivalent to 70% of China’s film market, one of the most important in the world. An example of the numbers that these series manage: one of the most popular, ‘Unparalleled’ may have earned 14 million dollars in just eight days of broadcast. And not only because of the high price of subscriptions to viewing platforms: their viewers are counted in hundreds of millions and there are already brands of cosmetic products with which they establish themselves juicy sponsorships. The secret to such enormous success? Variety, for example, point that if the time of confinement favored the explosion of health services streaming domestic because there was no choice but to be at home, when viewers have gone out again and used public transport, it is the mobile content apps that have skyrocketed their number of users. Behind this content there are mainly two names: on the one hand, Kuiashou, a platform dedicated to short videos that previously fed, like TikTok, on content mainly created by users (and that was the first to adopt the term “microdrama”); and on the other, Douyin, owned by Bytedance, also owner of TikTok. Leap out of Asia. All of this would remain just another format that is only consumed in China if it were not for the fact that microdramas are beginning to expand beyond the borders of the Asian country. In East and Southeast Asia it is beginning to be common and the company Reelshort (behind which is the giant Tencent and Baidu) want to bring microdramas to the United States, where they are starting to gain traction. The stores of Apple and Google apps, with wide penetration outside Asia, have seen applications intended for this type of content downloaded thirty million times in the first quarter of 2024so the foundations are well established. A look at Reelshort. A quick visit to Reelshort It will make it very clear to us what type of content we are talking about. They are series that westernize the Chinese product, as revealed by those titles with an undeniable oriental soap opera flavor: ‘In Love with the Alpha’, ‘The Billionaire’s Contract’ or ‘Fatal Attraction: Mafioso Romance’. All of them are translated and subtitled using AI, and some of them are dubbed with an unmistakable neutral accent, which also gives some clue as to what type of audience the app is aimed at: regular consumers of Latin American soap operas. The relationship with video games. And there is something else: the deep relationship of these products with video games, which starts with the gamification with which many of these programs are presented. Completing tasks such as watching the series gives access to the currency used by each app (which can also be purchased with real money), which allows you to unlock the episodes of the series that are blocked (the “taste” of the five or ten first episodes of each series is free, to hook the viewer). It is not surprising that some of the companies that own these apps (Crazy Maple Studio, owner of Reelshort, for example) are dedicated to the development of mobile games. In Xataka | There are hundreds of Chinese streamers streaming under bridges at night. And there is an explanation

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