First it was Zhao Wei
At the World Chinese Music Awards last weekend in Shanghai, security, which in China is usually zealous if not always competent, was unable to prevent fans from stretching out their hands and molesting Ken Chu, Gigi and Nicholas Tse as they walked the red carpet into the venue. Nicholas even suffered a cut that drew blood. Things went from bad to worse for Gigi when the award she won broke in half and part of it dropped onto her knee making it hard for her to walk.
TAIIPEI TIMES FILE PHOTO
Cecelia Cheung had her own run in with an out-of-control fan at a show in Chongqing when a man rushed the stage, grabbed her and touched her breasts before he was jerked off stage by security [outrageous, ed]. Hong Kong's gossip media that trail Cecilia round the clock insinuated that she may have brought the attack upon herself with her supposedly strange behavior of late. By strange, they mean her increasingly outlandish clothes, tattoos, Buddhist bead bracelets and the voodoo doll she was photographed with a couple weeks ago. There were rumors in the city's papers that she was using the voodoo doll to take revenge on her former boyfriend Nicholas Tse, who dropped her like a dirty tissue for Faye Wong (
TAIPEI TIMES FILE PHOTO
As annoying as the crazed fans in China may be, it seems that the mainland is where the big bucks are for stars these days, according to The Great Daily News (
Not surprisingly, Jay is also at the top of the heap in album sales. The most recent summer sales figures show Jay as having sold 305,000 copies of his latest album, which was named after his mother Ye Hui-mei (
Though not stars on the level of Jay and company, yet still household names in Taiwan -- partly because of a four-person sex scandal dating from last year -- ?the rock band Chairman (
Another Taipei show to look forward to that Pop Stop has learnt about from the owners of Room 18 is British R&B sensation Craig David. The venue is set for the National Taiwan University gymnasium, on Oct. 24. The organizers wouldn't say whether Craig would show up at their club after the show.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) was in Arizona on Oct. 5, to launch the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) in Phoenix, the 14th such de facto Taiwanese consulate in the US. In response, Liu Chang (劉暢), a spokesperson for China’s embassy in the US, said in a statement the same day: “China firmly opposes official interactions of any form between China’s Taiwan region and the US, including its federal and state governments.” After the office plans were announced in July, Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs received two letters from China’s consulate general in Los Angeles asking her to
In 1986 I entered the US Peace Corps in Kenya. As a US government volunteer we had a special US government ID for use in Kenya. Because of our position, we received extensive training in how to behave. This had special urgency for my group of volunteers: we had originally been slated for Nepal, but a US Peace Corps volunteer in another country had criticized that nation’s authoritarian president in public, and all of the Peace Corps volunteers were kicked out. As a result, the next group for that nation got sent to Nepal, and we got bumped to Kenya. The
In You Can See Everything, convicted fraudster Elizabeth Holmes invites film-makers Nathan Fielder and Lance Oppenheim into her home in a supposed act of “radical transparency.” Holmes is filmed, along with her partner, Billy Evans, and their two young children, in the weeks before starting a prison sentence for defrauding Theranos investors. “The best way for people to see who she is,” Evans says, “is to give as much access as possible into our daily lives.” It may also be the best way to market “Theranos 2.0,” which the couple are working on during filming. But the documentary questions whether
Oct. 26 to Nov. 1 Born backstage after one of her mother’s Taiwanese opera performances, Yang Li-hua (楊麗花) often says that she was already learning the craft in the womb. From a young age, she hoped to follow in her mother’s footsteps as a performer of male lead roles. But Yang came of age just a bit too late. She landed her first lead role in 1960 at the age of 16, but by then, public interest in live opera performances was declining. After a successful eight-month stint in the Philippines, she found herself without work in 1964. With fewer stage opportunities,