Is there a community standard dictating how low pants can ride before they become indecent? Next Magazine (
Speaking of plumbers and not wearing underwear, A-hsian (
The path from smut to stardom is a well-worn one in Taiwan, having been taken by such stars as Shu Qi (舒淇) and Vivian Hsu (徐若瑄), the latter of whom said Saturday on the SET TV show Cover Person (封面人物) that she had no regrets about shooting a nude photo book 10 years ago. She also said on the show that her only true love has been the Japanese rock star Sugizo. Of her previous liaisons with the Japanese singer Gackt and Jay Chou (周杰倫), she said they were all just friends.
TAIPEI TIMES FILE PHOTO
Gackt and Vivian had a chance to see each other again last Saturday at Lee Hom Wang's (王力宏) concert, which went off without a hitch and was attended by about 20,000 screaming teenage girls and a few dozen boys, give or take a few. After eight years in the public view as a singer and heart-throb, this was Lee Hom's first headlining concert, so he came out strong playing guitar, piano, drums and rapping to prove his mettle as more than just another pretty face.
The other big show last weekend was the one in front of the Presidential Office for Double Ten Day. Shunza (順子), as a Golden Melody Award winner, was one of the most anticipated acts, but once onstage she made an ass of herself by singing off key and forgetting even the words to her own hit song Come Home (回家). The Apple Daily (
Fans of Wang Kar-wai (王家衛) will have to keep waiting for his next movie to finally come out. The film, titled 2046, was set to continue shooting last week in Shanghai, but for reasons unannounced, was postponed. Tetsuya Kimura (木村拓哉), the Japanese actor starring in the movie, had come all the way from Japan for the shoot, but ended up going home the next day with agents saying it was because he was sick. The suspicion, though, is that Tetsuya left in disgust when the filming was delayed at the last minute.
TAIPEI TIMES FILE PHOTO
Michael slides a sequin glove over the pop star’s tarnished legacy, shrouding Michael Jackson’s complications with a conventional biopic that, if you cover your ears, sounds great. Antoine Fuqua’s movie is sanctioned by Jackson’s estate and its producers include the estate’s executors. So it is, by its nature, a narrow, authorized perspective on Jackson. The film ends before the flood of allegations of sexual abuse of children, or Jackson’s own acknowledgment of sleeping alongside kids. Jackson and his estate have long maintained his innocence. In his only criminal trial, in 2005, Jackson was acquitted. Michael doesn’t even subtly nod to these facts.
The March/April volume of Foreign Affairs, long a purveyor of pro-China pablum, offered up another irksome Beijing-speak on the issues and solutions for the problems vexing the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the US: “America and China at the Edge of Ruin: A Last Chance to Step Back From the Brink” rang the provocative title, by David M. Lampton and Wang Jisi (王緝思). If one ever wants to describe what went wrong with US-PRC relations, the career of Wang Jisi is a good place to start. Wang has extensive experience in the US and the West. He was a visiting
If one asks Taiwanese why house prices are so high or why the nation is so built up or why certain policies cannot be carried out, one common answer is that “Taiwan is too small.” This is actually true, though not in the way people think. The National Property Administration (NPA), responsible for tracking and managing the government’s real estate assets, maintains statistics on how much land the government owns. As of the end of last year, land for official use constituted 293,655 hectares, for public use 1,732,513 hectares, for non-public use 216,972 hectares and for state enterprises 34 hectares, yielding
The January 2028 presidential election is already stirring to life. In seven or eight months, the primary season will kick into high gear following this November’s local elections. By this point next year, we will likely know the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) candidate and whether the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) will be fielding a candidate. Also around this time, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) will either have already completed their primary, or it will be heading into the final stretch. By next summer, the presidential race will be in high gear. The big question is who will be the KMT’s