Author: Errica Jensen

The livestream started quietly, almost casually, as thousands of others do throughout China every night. The young woman’s face was glowing in the familiar ring light as she combed her hair in front of her phone’s camera in a small, well-lit room. Tiny digital affirmations moved faster than anyone could read as comments drifted upward across the screen. In response, she tilted her head slightly and smiled, putting on a routine performance of herself. Then, without warning, the performance faltered. The beauty filter broke for a split second, so short it was almost a dream. A softer, more textured, more…

The sounds of the ice in western Greenland on some summer days seem almost out of place. There were softer sounds—water trickling, dripping, and sliding across surfaces that were once permanently frozen—instead of the deep cracking that one might anticipate from glaciers. Researchers have reported seeing meltwater pooling in shallow blue ponds near the ice sheet’s edge, reflecting the sky with a spooky calm. It’s difficult to ignore how unremarkable it appears. Normal, and incorrect. The rate of change has become hard to ignore for scientists who have studied Greenland for decades. When it first surfaced in satellite data, even…

Polar bear behavior in the icy stillness of Svalbard’s pale blue coastline has changed from what scientists had anticipated. A large male was observed moving slowly across a rocky beach one afternoon not long ago, its paws crunching over frozen pebbles rather than gliding across sea ice. It stopped next to what appeared to be a walrus’s remains, lowering its head and feeding resolutely and quietly. The bear wasn’t starving, which is why there was something almost unnerving about the scene. Polar bears were thought to be declining for decades. The script was that. Their primary prey, seals, were disappearing…

A teen stood bent over a display phone in a well-lit Xiaomi store inside Dubai’s Mall of the Emirates, swiping up and down with an unusual amount of force. The camera was out of his line of sight. He wasn’t doing game testing. He was observing the icons’ movements. He silently nodded to himself when the screen responded immediately, without the slight lag that older Xiaomi phones occasionally displayed. That brief, nearly indiscernible moment seemed to be the true test that Xiaomi HyperOS had been anticipating. Compared to a standard software update, HyperOS comes with more baggage. It subtly puts…

There is hesitancy about Byun Yo-han when he first shows up on screen in many of his early roles. He doesn’t take over scenes right away. Rather, he observes. His characters frequently stand a little apart from other people, their shoulders relaxed but their eyes alert, as though they are awaiting approval to be there. In a field that relies heavily on charisma, it’s difficult to ignore how different this feels. Byun, who was born in Incheon in 1986, did not take the usual shortcut to fame. He worked quietly for years while attending the Korea National University of Arts,…

Mi-jung is silent during her initial appearance in “Pavane.” She is folding clothes that no one seems interested in purchasing while standing in the harsh lighting of a department store, her shoulders slightly bent inward as though she were shielding herself from an unseen threat. She moves with the quiet accuracy of someone accustomed to blending into the background, and it’s difficult to miss how carefully she avoids making eye contact. There’s a feeling that this movie views loneliness as everyday rather than dramatic. The movie, which is mostly set in a Seoul department store’s basement levels, centers on characters…

The theater becomes surprisingly quiet when Lucky first appears on screen. A tiny puppy, drenched from floodwater and shaky a little, appears more like a real animal trapped in the wrong narrative than a movie symbol. The film almost begs for the audience’s emotional trust before it earns it, and it’s difficult to ignore how quickly it depends on that vulnerability. The foundation of “Lucky the Superstar” is a straightforward concept. A stray puppy enters people’s lives and starts to alter them, sometimes subtly and other times significantly. It sounds familiar on paper, almost like a hundred previous children’s movies.…

It was a Tuesday afternoon, and the waiting room was unusually quiet. Wearing a wrinkled office shirt and running shoes, the young man sat scrolling through his phone, looking more like he was waiting for test results than a dental cleaning. He was no more than thirty years old. As events like these take place, it seems as though something has changed with regard to cancer, subtly moving into an age group that was previously shielded by youth. As a diagnosis linked to retirement years, grey hair, and accumulated time, cancer was largely relegated to the background of older adulthood…

The pavement in some areas of Shanghai last July did more than simply crack. It arose. As though something beneath them were pushing upward, drivers slowed and gazed at areas of the road that had lifted unevenly. The air twisted light and warped distance as it shimmered over the asphalt. It’s possible that this was the first time the heat began to feel more like pressure than weather for many locals. China has always constructed its cities to be large. Broad roads, tall apartment complexes, and expansive industrial areas. However, records of heat are challenging the notion that steel and…

In Tacloban, the sea frequently appears innocuous just before sunrise, flattening into a drab grey sheet. As waves roll in, fishing boats sit tilted in the sand, their ropes making a soft creaking sound. However, there is currently a hesitancy, a silent pause before anyone leaves. Without the use of scientific tools, fishermen might be able to detect changes beneath the surface. Life has always included cyclones throughout the Pacific. They were anticipated, prepared for, and recovered from by people as they grew up. However, it seems like storms are acting differently these days, intensifying at an unusual rate, bringing…