This Year in Asia: money laundering in Singapore, Taylor Swift's snubs, Robert Kuok at 100 and other highlights of 2023
From China's long-awaited post-pandemic reopening to Taylor Swift's snub of everywhere else in Southeast Asia but Singapore - and Malaysian business tycoon Robert Kuok's 100th birthday - here are This Week in Asia's highlights of the year, based on our best-read stories.
As China finally began to dismantle its punishing zero-Covid regime of the previous three years, Chinese nationals with the means to do so were looking to escape the controls - and an increasingly uncertain economy - by heading for Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand in January.
Dubbed "run" culture, the trend saw many members of China's middle class jump at the chance to flee to freer Southeast Asian pastures and embrace the plethora of more-affordable investment opportunities available.
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Indian foodies took to social media at the start of the year to defend their favourite dishes after a controversial ranking placed their country's cuisine below that of Japan, Spain, Greece and Italy.
Some blamed "ignorance" and "racism" for the disappointing showing - while other spicy takes pointed out that India - much like China - doesn't have a single, unified cuisine, with myriad regional variations instead.
Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jnr's move to scrap all of the country's iconic jeepneys was met with a fierce backlash in March, as protesting drivers said the costly modernisation drive would "be the death of us".
Several thousand drivers went on strike to protest against the removal of the iconic diesel-powered vehicles, which have for decades been the most popular form of public transport in the Philippines since they were modified and reproduced from US military jeeps left behind after World War II.
As Malaysia's sovereign wealth fund in April sold its stake in an "amazing" film studio complex to a Singapore-based media firm for a fraction of its initial investment, Malaysian creatives mourned the loss of a facility that never really lived up to its promise.
Insiders partly pinned the blame for the studio's lacklustre performance on the unhelpful attitudes of conservatives in the country towards its creative industries.
Swifties in Malaysia, Thailand and the Philippines were left feeling dejected after the American songstress announced in June that her sell-out Eras Tour would be calling into Singapore in March 2024 - but nowhere else in Southeast Asia.
It came as British band Coldplay similarly sold out six Singapore dates, leaving many of the region's music fans envying the city state's ability to draw major international stars - and wondering whether rival hub Hong Kong had fallen behind.
In July, This Week in Asia took an exclusive deep dive into the brutal criminal enterprises dotting the Moei River that forms Myanmar's border with Thailand.
Interviews with survivors revealed how they had been ensnared by promises of legitimate, well-paid work, before being trafficked into compounds in the lawless border region where they were tortured - and threatened with death - as their captors forced them to defraud strangers online.
Flexing - slang in Vietnam for bragging - is on the rise, as the economy booms and more young people seek out qualifications from respected US universities with salaries to match.
But not everyone has been part of the success story, as plenty of the country's poorest still struggle to keep their heads above water - and even those not on a subsistence wage find the high cost of education prohibitive, as dark economic clouds gather on the horizon.
It's been called one of the "most serious, if not the worst" money-laundering cases in Singapore's history, with a laundry list of seized assets ranging from millions of dollars in cash to ultra-exclusive properties, luxury cars and jewellery.
The case led to the arrest in August of 10 suspects of Chinese origin who held a cornucopia of other nationalities, casting a spotlight on the phenomenon of "citizenship for sale" and exposing the latest must-have in criminals' tool kits to cross borders, evade jail and wash the billions of dollars in ill-gotten gains.
Hong Kong magnate Robert Kuok, the Malaysia-born 'Sugar King of Asia', turned 100 in October, being feted with congratulatory messages from a string of luminaries including fellow tycoons Lee Shau-kee and Hong Kong's richest man Li Ka-shing.
Kuok is among the handful of Southeast Asian entrepreneurs tempered by the horrors of war who built businesses that evolved with the region's newly independent nations.
The outbreak of the Israel-Gaza war stirred emotions across the region, which initially found itself divided in its response to a conflict that has now claimed tens of thousands of lives - the vast majority of them Palestinian.
In Muslim-majority Indonesia, rage at Israel over the conflict transmuted into a wide-ranging boycott encompassing McDonald's and Pringles in November, while Malaysians took to social media in their droves to proclaim they were quitting the Singapore-based Grab app because of a post the CEO's wife had made on social media.
The mystery of why vast numbers of sardines and chub mackerels washed up dead on a beach in northern Japan puzzled readers in December.
The fish began washing ashore on December 7, with television footage showing 1.5km of shoreline ankle-deep in silver fish.
Local officials estimated that around 1,000 tonnes of fish came ashore, but suggested the actual figure might be higher.
The Japanese government later expressed its "anger and disappointment" at Britain's Daily Mail tabloid for linking the event to the Fukushima nuclear power plant.
This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).
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