After an exclusive report in Next Magazine last week (which was reported in Pop Stop) -- that claimed to have insider evidence that Hong Kong singer/actress Anita Mui (
Mui said the cancer hadn't spread and could most likely be successfully treated. But papers and magazines have expressed doubts about
whether the cancer has truly been detected early enough to treat and noted that she appears in public now wearing a hat, supposedly to cover up hair loss due to therapy and has already bought a burial site next to her sister. Another source of doubt is the fact that until Friday, Mui had vehemently denied what were then just rumors of her cancer.
Exhibiting denial of a different kind recently is Hsiao Hsien (
Speaking of abnormal activities, TV host Jacky Wu (
Lee Hom Wang (
This was apparently the week of unseemly passions, as former LA Boyz member and current UC Irvine med student Steve was spotted by local media involved in a rowdy public display of affection on Anhe Road last weekend. At the time he was wearing the muscle-accentuating wife-beater T-shirt that seems to make up his wardrobe's entire shirt collection.
To the chagrin of many women, Takeshi Kaneshiro (金城武) won't be indulging in any such tomfoolery because, according to the man himself, he?"doesn't have time for women" these days. In Taipei on Tuesday to promote his new movie Turn Left Turn Right in which he stars opposite Gigi Leung (梁詠琪), a reporter asked Takeshi if sparks had flown between him and Gigi, and if not, could sparks occur between him and the reporter. He responded with a devastatingly flat no to both questions.
Following up on a story from last week, Sun Yanzi (孫燕姿) and S.H.E. toasted each other at last weekend's Singapore Golden Melody Awards ceremony in a display of unity and friendship that they hoped would end the acrimony between their respective fans. S.H.E. fans have been calling for blood since Yanzi's album has been consistently outselling S.H.E.'s album that was released on the same day.
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
This year’s Michelin Gourmand Bib sported 16 new entries in the 126-strong Taiwan directory. The fight for the best braised pork rice and the crispiest scallion pancake painstakingly continued, but what stood out in the lineup this year? Pang Taqueria (胖塔可利亞); Taiwan’s first Michelin-recommended Mexican restaurant. Chef Charles Chen (陳治宇) is a self-confessed Americophile, earning his chef whites at a fine-dining Latin-American fusion restaurant. But what makes this Xinyi (信義) spot stand head and shoulders above Taipei’s existing Mexican offerings? The authenticity. The produce. The care. AUTHENTIC EATS In my time on the island, I have caved too many times to
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not