This Weird Year in Asia: monkey sex, toilet water beer, a 'bachelor's handbag'

As we prepare to flip the calendar on 2022 signalling an end to another year (of Covid), here at This Week in Asia we would like to look back on some of the more peculiar stories from the last 12 months.

We will start at nothing, or one Japanese man's mission to accomplish nothing.

Japan's Shoji Morimoto gets paid to do pretty much nothing.

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The 38-year-old Tokyo resident charges 10,000 yen (US$71) an hour to accompany clients and simply be a companion.

"Basically, I rent myself out. My job is to be wherever my clients want me to be and to do nothing in particular," Morimoto said, adding that he handled some 4,000 sessions the past four years.

His job has taken him to a park with a person who wanted to play on a see-saw. He has also beamed and waved through a train window at a complete stranger who wanted a send-off, and has sometimes just sat and listened.

Doing nothing does not mean Morimoto will do anything, though. He has turned down offers to move a fridge and go to Cambodia, and does not take any sexual requests.

Before Morimoto found his true calling, he worked at a publishing company and was often chided for "doing nothing".

"I started wondering what would happen if I provided my ability to 'do nothing' as a service to clients," he said.

"People tend to think that my 'doing nothing' is valuable because it is useful [for others] ... But it's fine to really not do anything. People do not have to be useful in any specific way," he said. "I don't do anything except eating and drinking. And I give a very simple reply when I'm asked anything."

An airline passenger was fined nearly US$2,000 after two undeclared McMuffins and a ham croissant were found in their luggage by an airport security dog upon arriving in Darwin, Australia this summer.

The incident took place on the heels of Australian authorities implementing new biosecurity rules after a foot and mouth disease outbreak in Indonesia spread to Bali, multiple outlets reported.

But that wasn't the only food smuggling case in Australia this year.

An Indonesian man was fined and deported after large quantities of undeclared meat, including 1.4kg of beef rendang, were found in his luggage in October.

Officers at Perth airport also detected 3.1kg of duck meat, more than 500g of frozen beef and about 900g of chicken in his bags.

He selected "no" on his pre-arrival passenger card that asked if he was bringing any meat, poultry, fish, seafood, eggs or vegetables into Australia.

Border officials cancelled his visa and repatriated him. They added the traveller, who was also fined A$2,664 (US$1,711), planned to sell the meat to members of the local community.

If those food tales left you parched - may we suggest Singapore's newest beer?

"NEWBrew" is no ordinary beer. The blond ale is made with recycled sewage.

The drink is a collaboration between the country's national water agency, PUB, and local craft brewery Brewerkz.

"I seriously couldn't tell this was made of toilet water," said Chew Wei Lian, 58, who bought the beer from a supermarket after hearing about it. "I mean, it tastes just like beer, and I like beer."

The idea of processing sewage into drinking water, once largely resisted, has been gaining support the past decade as the world's supply of fresh water is increasingly under stress. International conservation organisation, WWF, estimates 2.7 billion people find water scarce for at least one month a year.

A rural South Korean town got into hot water over its garlic advert that some farmers say stinks of obscenity and even sexually objectified the vegetable.

The controversy surrounded a 30-second YouTube video for Hongseong County, a town of about 100,000 people known for its local "Hongsan" garlic.

The video, which had been on the site for about two years, shows a woman flirting with a man named "Hongsan" with a full garlic head mask. The scene is a parody of a famous scene from 2004 hit Korean film Once Upon a Time in High School.

The spicy ad, which reportedly generated about 190,000 views had been largely kept underground, but began to take root in the larger public consciousness when it was aired on electronic billboards at a Seoul express bus terminal and a street in the city of Daejeon in July ahead of the garlic's release.

One farmer who saw the video notified farmers' groups, while South Korean media also began reporting on it, leaving a bad taste in people's mouths.

After a backlash, Hongseong officials removed the video and stopped airing it on billboards.

Flavoured condoms have become a solution for youth looking to get high in West Bengal's Durgapur region, local Indian television outlet News 18 reported.

When the condoms are soaked in hot water they apparently release polyurethane, resulting in a cocktail that can give off a high lasting many hours.

"Earlier, three to four packets of condoms were sold daily. And now packs of condoms are disappearing from a store," said a shop employee.

Experts said consuming intoxicating flavoured-condom water has consequences.

"Drinking this water can cause intoxication and addiction. If consumed repeatedly, it will negatively impact the lungs and kidneys, as well as harm the body's nervous system," said Joydeep Ghosh, an internal medicine expert at Fortis Hospital in Kolkata.

Animals do not use protection during intercourse, but some apparently use sex toys.

While studying a population of 173 long-tailed macaques in Indonesia, researchers observed the monkeys tapping and rubbing stones on their genitals and groin area, according to a paper published in the journal Ethology. The behaviour led the researchers to the "Sex Toy" hypothesis.

Researchers observed that young males were more likely than older ones to partake in the behaviour, and their actions were often followed by sexual responses, such as an erection. They also found interactions with the stone were associated with other sexual behaviours, like mounting.

Researchers said data partly supported the theory the behaviour was "sexually motivated." Meaning the monkeys seemed to be performing "a form of self-directed, tool-assisted masturbation", Camilla Cenni, a PhD student at the University of Lethbridge in Canada and author of the study, told The New York Times.

Australians have their own vernacular - luckily they have provided a list for those of us who do not live Down Under.

The Macquarie Dictionary announced "bachelor's handbag" - a roast chicken takeaway in a plastic bag - has been voted the Australian people's choice as the new word of the year.

The Australian-English dictionary defined the term as a "noun: colloquial (humorous) a takeaway roast chicken".

It explained its origin as: "From the fact that such a chicken requires no further preparation before consumption, so is seen as an easy meal favoured by a single person, and is often packaged in a small plastic bag with a handle, resembling a handbag."

Other gems added to the dictionary this year include a "spicy cough" for a Covid infection, and a "gigafire" for a bushfire that scorches more than 100,000 hectares.

The dictionary committee's formal choice for word of the year was "teal".

Not just a colour, teal also defines a new crop of independent politicians combining environmental green and conservative blue policies who gained prominence in May general elections.

Words, or the choice of words, landed South Korea's President Yoon Suk-yeol in trouble after disparaging remarks apparently about key ally the United States were caught on microphone.

Yoon was in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, and chatted with Joe Biden during a photo op at the Global Fund where the US President had just pledged US$6 billion.

"How could Biden not lose damn face if these f*****s do not pass it in Congress?" Yoon was caught saying to his aides afterwards in footage that went viral in South Korea.

Yoon's comments appeared to refer to Biden's drive to increase US funding to the Global Fund, which would require congressional approval.

A YouTube video of Yoon's words racked up more than 2 million views hours after it was posted, and "f*****s" became the top trending Twitter topic in South Korea.

Yoon's office denied the report, insisting he was not talking about US Congress or Biden.

We need a symbol for 2022's oddball stories - and luckily Japan has us covered.

In May it unveiled its mascot for the 2025 Osaka World Expo, and its choice left many scratching their heads. The creature, eventually named Myaku-Myaku (coming from the word myakumyaku, whereby something is passed down continuously) is a blue figure topped with a circle of red, interconnected bubbles containing five eyes looking in different directions.

Its blue body represents the waters around Osaka, organisers said. No explanation was given for why it has five eyes.

Before naming it, organisers asked the public for suggestions, and entries on the expo's Twitter page included "Curse of the Abyss" and "The End".

And with that we have reached the end, of this column, and the year.

Those were just a handful of the stories that made us smile, cringe, and scratch our heads on the SCMP Asia Desk in 2022.

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

Copyright (c) 2022. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.