Why people are renting family members in Japan
People hire actors to play a dad, a daughter, a partner, whoever they need for a dinner, a work event, or even emotional support. It’s a real business that’s become more common as more people live...
The Rebel Yellow - Issue #148
Researchers found that most people can identify AI-generated faces only 31% of the time, and UN officials report that criminal groups in Southeast Asia are using synthetic identities and cloned voices to run large-scale fraud targeting older adults. In Oregon, a new historical marker documents the World War II service of 433 Japanese American soldiers from the state and the removal and later restoration of 16 Nisei veterans’ names from a county honor roll. The Smithsonian opened an exhibition of 330 Korean masterworks from the Lee Kun Hee family donation, the first time many of the pieces have been shown in the U.S. A Lancet review of 104 long-term studies links heavy consumption of ultra-processed foods to higher risks of obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease and several cancers. New climate research attributes the fall of the Western Zhou Dynasty to prolonged drought and flooding rather than the actions of Bao Si. Annenberg data shows that 77.1% of top podcast hosts are white and that women of color remain underrepresented. In recent interviews, Michelle Yeoh discussed gender expectations in her upbringing and ongoing experiences with racism.
It’s time to teach our parents how to spot AI fakes
As artificial intelligence (AI) tools develop at an unprecedented rate, it is becoming more and more difficult for people to tell digital faces from real ones. Participants of a recent study by researchers from the University of Reading and partner institutions correctly identified AI generated faces only 31% of the time even when looking for obvious flaws.
The findings show that untrained viewers miss the same visual cues scammers and misinformation spreaders rely on, which makes it essential for elders, including our own parents, to learn how to recognize those patterns.
Knowing where to look
The University of Reading study tested 664 people on their ability to distinguish real faces from images generated by StyleGAN3, a widely used neural network that produces highly realistic synthetic portraits. Typical participants identified the synthetic faces correctly only 31% of the time and super recognizers (individuals with unusually strong face recognition ability) reached 41%, which showed how closely current AI systems can mimic natural features.
When researchers gave a short tutorial pointing out common trouble spots, such as uneven lighting or items that blend into the background, accuracy improved, with typical viewers reaching 51% and the strongest recognizers reaching 64%. Study lead Katie Gray said, “Computer generated faces pose genuine security risks. They have been used to create fake social media profiles, bypass identity verification systems and create false documents.”
AI-powered crime networks are here
One of the reasons identifying fakes is extremely important is that organized crime groups are adopting AI to increase the scale and efficiency of cybercrime, of which older adults are particularly susceptible to. A technical brief from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime reported that criminal groups in Southeast Asia are using AI-generated faces, cloned voices and synthetic identities to support large scale fraud.
These automated tools are increasingly responsible for phishing, malware distribution and illicit financial transfers. It also reports that these scammers have begun integrating multilingual chatbots, automated outreach systems and coerced labor into their operations to target victims around the world.
U.S. officials estimate that Americans lost “tens of billions” to scam operations based in the region last year. The data shows that older adults are more financially attractive targets and experience significantly higher losses when deceived.
Fake news in the AI era
A recent study by the University of Colorado Boulder and the Rochester Institute of Technology found that adults aged 55 and older were significantly more likely to share inaccurate political headlines than younger users. The research, which surveyed nearly 2,500 adults in the U.S. and Brazil, reported that older participants were more likely to treat misleading headlines as true.
Even 79-year-old President Donald Trump, who is surrounded by professional advisers and media staff, recently circulated an AI-generated video promoting so-called “medbeds,” a fabricated device that has spread for years within wellness and tech hoax communities. The fact that a high-profile figure with extensive support can be misled by synthetic content underscores how challenging detection can be for older adults who navigate these messages without similar resources.
Guidance for older adults
Asian American seniors often manage family savings, remittances or multi generation messaging groups, which gives them a central role in financial and communication decisions. These responsibilities increase the likelihood that they will respond quickly when a familiar name or voice appears to ask for help. The same urgency applies when they encounter headlines or posts that appear credible. The shift leaves seniors with far fewer signals to tell when a familiar face or voice is not genuine.
The training approach used in the study offers a practical model families can adapt at home. Begin by showing a real face and an AI generated one and ask what looks unusual. Point to details such as mismatched teeth, blended background edges or lighting that does not align, since these inconsistencies appear in many synthetic images.
Encourage parents to pause when a message or image seems urgent and to confirm identity through a separate channel before responding. The goal is to build a routine of checking, not perfect accuracy, with regular practice making it easier for older relatives to notice when something feels off.
Oregon unveils historical marker detailing service of Japanese American WWII soldiers
A historical marker unveiled on Veterans Day along Highway 35 in Hood River documents the World War II service of Oregon’s second-generation Japanese American soldiers. The installation presents verified figures showing that 433 Nisei from Oregon served in the U.S. military, including 58 from Hood River County. Its text also lists the 16 local Nisei whose names were removed from a county honor roll on Nov. 29, 1944, because of their Japanese ancestry.
The marker stands about one mile south of Hood River on the section of Highway 35 that the state designated in March 2022 as the Oregon Nisei Veterans WWII Memorial Highway, a route that runs from Hood River to Government Camp. The dedication took place during the morning Nov. 11 ceremony hosted by American Legion Post 22 at River of Life Assembly Church, where descendants and residents viewed the installation for the first time. The panel includes detailed information on the wartime service of Oregon Nisei, the Nov. 29 removal of names from the honor roll while several of the men were deployed overseas and the April 1945 restoration of those names after the incident drew national attention.
The project was developed by descendant groups and regional heritage organizations including the Japanese American Citizens League, the Japanese American Museum of Oregon and the History Museum of Hood River County. Their research incorporated military service records, county documents and verified archival material to ensure the accuracy of each figure and event referenced on the marker. At the dedication, historian Linda Tamura said, “We are really very pleased that we are able to honor Nisei veterans and their service during World War II, but also do it as a way of coming together.”
Korean masterworks make U.S. debut at Smithsonian
More than 200 rare works from Korea’s most significant private art donation opened to the public on Saturday at the National Museum of Asian Art in Washington, D.C., where they will remain on view through Feb. 22, 2026. The exhibition brings pieces once held exclusively in the late Lee Kun Hee’s personal collection into a major international museum for the first time. Visitors are viewing objects that shaped Korea’s cultural history across centuries and were previously accessible only within Korea’s national institutions.
Depth of the collection: The exhibition “Korean Treasures: Collected, Cherished, Shared” features 330 objects that span roughly 1,500 years of Korean art, from the Three Kingdoms period through the 20th century. The selection includes National Treasures designated by the South Korean government along with celadon, white porcelain, gilt bronze Buddhist sculptures and modern paintings. Many of the objects come from the donation of 23,000 works made by Lee Kun Hee’s family to South Korean institutions in 2021.
Visitor experience: The museum organized the exhibition into 10 thematic galleries that reflect the cultural settings in which the works were originally created and used, including royal courts, Buddhist temples, Confucian academies and scholars studios. “By creating thematic galleries, we thought we could help visitors understand the original contexts where these objects were used, made and sponsored,” said curator Hwang Sun Woo. Several pieces were also lent by the Leeum Museum of Art in Seoul to expand the range of historical periods and materials on display.
Significance for Korean art access: Museum director Chase F. Robinson said the exhibition is “the largest Korean show we have ever done at our museum and, for some time, the most important show of Korean art in the U.S.” The presentation marks the first time these works have been exhibited outside Korea following their transfer to public ownership in 2021. The museum’s installation provides access to objects that have rarely been available to audiences in the U.S.
In Japan, there’s a growing industry where you can literally rent a family member.
(Presented by Searchlight Pictures)
People hire actors to play a dad, a daughter, a partner, whoever they need for a dinner, a work event, or even emotional support. It’s a real business that’s become more common as more people live alone, work long hours, and have fewer traditional family structures.
These services can cost hundreds of dollars for just a few hours, and for many clients, it’s less about pretending and more about filling a gap they don’t know how to solve.
Searchlight Pictures’ new film Rental Family steps into this world.
Brendan Fraser stars as an American actor living in Tokyo who joins one of these “rental family” agencies. What starts off as just another acting gig becomes something deeper as the fake roles start to feel real — for both him and the people he’s hired to help.
Directed by Hikari, the film mixes humor, heart, and a very real look at loneliness, connection, and what “family” means today.
Rental Family is playing in theaters everywhere. Get tickets now!
Landmark study links ultra processed foods to chronic diseases worldwide
A global review published by The Lancet reports that many familiar convenience foods, including instant noodles, sweetened beverages and packaged snacks, are linked to higher risks of chronic disease when eaten in large amounts.
The three-part analysis examined 104 long term studies and found that 92 showed consistent associations between heavy consumption of ultra processed foods — or items made with additives and ingredients not typically used in home cooking — and increased risks of obesity, type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease or several cancers. The review was completed by 43 experts using data collected across multiple regions over the past two decades.
Finding a consistent pattern
The review compiles data from cohort and longitudinal studies conducted in countries across North America, Europe, Latin America and Asia. UPFs were classified using the NOVA system, which identifies products formulated with industrial ingredients, preservatives and artificial flavors and colors rather than whole foods. Across the included studies, participants with the highest intake of these products showed increased body weight, higher fasting glucose and elevated markers tied to cardiovascular risk.
Several studies that examined cancer outcomes reported higher incidence of colorectal, breast and other cancers among groups with the greatest consumption levels. The authors explain that while the evidence comes from observational research, the alignment of results across populations strengthens the overall interpretation of risk and indicates a consistent pattern.
Alarming world trend
In the U.S., national dietary surveillance shows that adults obtained about 53% of their daily calories from ultra processed foods between August 2021 and August 2023, with children and teens reaching nearly 62%. Among Asian Americans, research indicates a lower overall share at 35.5%, although intake varies by nativity. U.S.-born Asian Americans consumed 51.5% of their daily energy from ultra processed foods compared to 37.1% among those who were foreign born, a pattern that reflects differences in food access, acculturation and household eating habits.
The review also highlights significant increases in ultra processed food intake in parts of Asia where diets have traditionally relied on fresh and minimally processed foods. In South Korea, national records show that ultra processed foods accounted for 17.4% of adult energy intake in 1998 to 2005 and rose to 26.7% in 2016 to 2019, with levels remaining above 25% in 2020 to 2022. A dietary study of middle-aged adults in Japan found that 38.2% of daily energy intake came from ultra processed foods.
Researchers point out that these products are often chosen for convenience, which can make it easy to overlook how heavily they rely on industrial formulations rather than ingredients used in home cooking, a pattern that has grown more visible in Japan and South Korea as long work hours and fast paced routines increase reliance on ready to eat options.
Global call to action
Research summarized in the review points to the role of global food system changes in shaping consumption patterns. The authors note that modern retail expansion, large scale food and beverage manufacturing and extensive distribution networks have increased the availability and affordability of ultra processed products across many countries. They add that “powerful global corporations” continue to drive these trends through wide marketing reach and policy influence, contributing to the growing presence of ultra processed foods in national diets.
The review states that national nutrition guidelines often overlook risks tied to the degree of processing and recommends front of package labeling, marketing restrictions and procurement standards that increase availability of minimally processed foods in public institutions. The authors add that “the signal is already strong enough for governments to take action,” noting that structural policy measures will be necessary to reduce population level exposure.
New research dismantles 2,000-year-old Chinese legend that blamed a woman for dynasty’s collapse
A new study decisively challenges the historical portrayal of Bao Si, a figure long scapegoated for the collapse of the Western Zhou Dynasty. By presenting climate data from stalagmites and sediment layers covering the 820 to 700 BC period, the research shifts the focus from gendered blame to environmental stress.
The traditional account attributed the dynasty’s downfall to Bao Si’s supposed failures and manipulation in later historical writings. However, the new empirical evidence provides a compelling alternate explanation, suggesting that deep-seated environmental instability, not the actions of a royal consort, is what ultimately brought the state down.
Bao Si as a historical scapegoat
Bao Si appears primarily in texts compiled centuries after the Western Zhou period, where she is described as a consort whose presence at court indirectly set off events leading to the kingdom’s downfall. The legend, most famously recounted in the “Shiji” (“Records of the Grand Historian”), claims that King You doomed the dynasty by repeatedly lighting the emergency warning beacons solely to amuse Bao Si, causing the feudal lords to lose trust and fail to respond during the real invasion. The new research treats these narratives not as factual history, but as cautionary tales and political fictions, placing them alongside objective evidence of long-term environmental stress.
This scientific framing directly challenges the long-held interpretation that the dynasty fell because of the fatal flaw of a woman. Instead of focusing on decisions connected to her story, the study focuses on structural weaknesses inherent to the kingdom.
Climate data points to structural failure
The evidence shows a clear pattern of severe drought in the north and increased flooding in the south during the critical period. The study’s analysis indicates that northern China experienced sustained aridity during the late Western Zhou era, while the southeast saw increased rainfall and flooding.
Researchers report that these conditions would have catastrophically undermined grain production and severely strained the kingdom’s ability to manage frontier pressures. The environmental shifts appear to predate the dynasty’s final crisis in 771 BC, suggesting that structural vulnerabilities were already deeply entrenched before its final collapse.
The findings add significantly to growing scholarly efforts to expose the gendered bias in historical records, particularly those that cast women as convenient villains in explanatory legends, thereby diverting attention from systemic political and environmental failures.
Your podcast queue needs more diverse voices
A new study from the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative at the University of Southern California finds that the hosts of the top 100 podcasts of 2024 were overwhelmingly white and male, revealing a persistent lack of diversity in one of the most influential digital media platforms.
Gender gaps across top genres
The report, titled “Inequality in Popular Podcasts,” examined 592 of the most popular podcasts overall and analyzed the top 100 in greater detail. The study found that 77.1% of top podcast hosts were white and 22.3% came from underrepresented racial or ethnic groups. Overall, 35.9% of hosts were women compared with 64.1% men. Only 6.6% of shows featured a woman of color among the hosts.
“Podcasting’s power lies in its potential as a democratized medium, where anyone with an idea and a microphone can find an audience,” said Stacy L. Smith, founder of the Annenberg Inclusion Initiative.
Among the few
Only a select few hosts of color manage to crack the stronghold of white male talent at the top of the charts, headlined by the likes of Joe Rogan (“The Joe Rogan Experience”) and the Kelce brothers (“New Heights”). Notable exceptions include South African comedian Trevor Noah (“What Now? with Trevor Noah”) and Dr. Joy Harden Bradford (“Therapy for Black Girls”), who has built one of the most significant platforms for a Black female host. The list of successful Asian creators is exceptionally short, featuring comedian Bobby Lee (“Bad Friends”), Jay Shetty (“On Purpose”) and Stephanie Soo (“Rotten Mango”).
Researchers noted that these proportions have remained relatively stable over recent years despite a more diverse audience base. Smith said the results “underscore both the reach of podcasting and the opportunity to ensure the voices behind the mic reflect the audiences they serve.”
Making room for more voices
Despite the disparity, Asian American creators are producing definitive work in a variety of categories. Hrishikesh Hirway has garnered critical acclaim for deconstructing music on “Song Exploder,” while Nilay Patel conducts high-profile interviews with industry leaders on “Decoder.” Melody Cheng, Helen Wu and Janet Wang share essential conversations on “AsianBossGirl,” and SuChin Pak and Kulap Vilaysack offer a sharp, comedic take on consumer culture with “Add to Cart.”
Independent networks also offer a counter-narrative to the study’s findings on exclusivity. Bart Kwan and Joe Jitsukawa have bypassed traditional gatekeepers with “Just Kidding News,” where they cover current events through candid, unscripted debates. The “Jeff Kung Show,” hosted by hip-hop artist Jeff Kung, similarly bridges cultural gaps by discussing global trends and entertainment.
Listening to a wider range of creators matters because it brings forward stories that rarely reach the top of the charts, especially from communities like our own. When audiences make room for voices outside the usual hierarchy, they help push the medium closer to reflecting the people who actually listen, not just the ones who have long dominated the spotlight.
Michelle Yeoh says she was taught to be “seen and not heard” while growing up
International superstar Michelle Yeoh said in a new interview on Wednesday that she grew up believing she should be “seen and not heard,” explaining that her childhood was shaped by expectations common in many Asian households.
Speaking on the “How To Fail” podcast, the 63-year-old Malaysian actress reflected on the rules she absorbed as a girl in Ipoh before leaving for London as a teenager to study at the Royal Academy of Dance.
“I feel that with Asian parents, especially moms, they try to have their children be seen and not heard,” Yeoh said. She explained that her mom taught her that “girls should behave like girls, not make loud noises and things like that.”
According to Yeoh, challenging those norms was a gradual process as she grew older. “My mom instilled that in us and it took me a while to go to her and say, ‘actually, it’s not true, we can speak our minds and we don’t always have to agree with what everybody else is saying.’”
Yeoh also discussed racism she has encountered throughout her career. “I would be lying if I say no,” she said, noting that even in more recent years she has witnessed people question “what’s an Asian person doing here.” She pointed to ongoing attacks against Asian Americans as evidence that discrimination persists and said that projects like “Wicked” help audiences embrace difference. “I think that is something I hope that we all learn that an act of kindness or compassion goes a long, long way in our world, and we are in so desperate need of that,” she added.
“Wicked: For Good,” the second of a two-part feature film adaptation of the Broadway musical, releases worldwide today.