Thomas Morton
The Fat Farms of Mauritania
In Mauritania, a country crippled by food shortages, obesity is viewed as a sign of wealth and prestige in a woman. To attain Mauritanian standards of beauty, many women undergo the practice of 'gavage,' or "fattening up."
Medieval Slimes
According to sources such as Hollywood, history textbooks, and the word on the street, the Middle Ages were a thousand-year grunge revival in which everybody walked around covered in fleas and mud.
Chinese Cockblock - The Sex Doll Factory
With 50 million more men than women, the sex industry in China is growing rapidly. For episode five of 'VICE' on HBO, we went to a sex-doll factory in the city of Dalian to see the effects of the uneven dating landscape.
Grocery Shopping for North Korean Defectors
Thousands of North Koreans cross the border illegally into China every year. If they are arrested in communist Laos, there’s the possibility of being sent back to North Korea, where they face prison camps or worse. We recently met up with a South...
Escape from North Korea - Hanawon Resettlement Center
Before a defector can officially become a member of South Korean society, he or she must complete a program at the Hanawon Resettlement Center.
West African Truckers
The truck driver holds a mythic stature in American music, from the hayseed hagiographies of Slim Jacobs to the liner notes of Big Black's 'Songs About Fucking.' There aren't many songs about African truckers, but they are no less champions of industry...
Trip Report: I Went to Lit Sober
The Lit Lounge, if you aren't from New York, is a leering black hole from which few memories escape intact. If the standard, workaday memory is already 50 percent confabulation, the average Lit memory is about eight frames of reality cobbled together...
The Only Record Store in Mauritania
While filming in Africa we passed through Nouakchott, Mauritania, and decided to stop in the country's only record store, Saphir D'or. Turns out, it rules! We chatted with Ahmede Valle, shop proprietor and seasoned DJ, about record collecting and the...
It's Like Vietnam All Over Again
The Vietnam War has typically been forbidden territory for war reenactors, but reenactment groups around the country have begun collecting their rice hats and period-appropriate M16s for pretend skirmishes with fake Viet Cong.
It's Like Vietnam All Over Again
Thomas Morton embeds with the Virginia-Carolina Military History Association as they embark on their first tour of Vietnam… in North Carolina. In part two, we witness the degrading interrogation of a captured Vietnamese soldier that gets a little too...
Bush League Rebels
On my first day embedded with the UN stabilization force in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, I visited a camp in the city of Goma set up to house rebel combatants who had recently surrendered. The facility was split along ethnic and administrative...