Pop Stop

Jay Chou's (周杰倫) confirmation to perform at the New Year's Eve party in front of the Presidential Office shows some reassuring gusto on the part of his record label Alfa, which was reportedly worried over a potential backlash from China similar to the one A-mei (阿妹) suffered in 2000 for singing the national anthem at the president's inauguration.

Over the past three years, even stridently pro-Taiwan performers have hot potatoed invitations from A-bian. Commenting on this issue, the Liberty Times (自由時報) in its "Scissors" entertainment editorial admonished artists who shy away from national celebrations for fear of being blocked out of China's mega-market. "Artists must be brave to gain the respect of their fans. If all they think about is money, and don't even respect their nation, how can anyone look up to them?"

Whether record labels are going to be moved by the paper's high-minded patriotism or any other political consideration is doubtful. But Jay's bosses have probably read the tea leaves and realized that he essentially can do whatever he wants, because so many business interests in China rely on Jay that even the Communist Party couldn't shut him out. And this doesn't even take into account the hundreds of millions of teenie boppers who might take to arms if their hero is barred from the country. So, chances are, Jay can wave an A-bian flag and still earn some Renminbi.

Jay also gets to wear the crown this year for being the top-selling artist in Taiwan, having moved 333,000 copies of his Ye Hui-mei (葉惠美) album, according to statistics compiled by Taiwan's two largest music distributors DigiAsia and Rose Records and published in The Great Entertainment Daily (大成報). Only 3,000 copies behind him is his erstwhile girlfriend Jolin Tsai (蔡依林), who is trailed by Sun Yanzi (孫燕姿), S.H.E. and boy band 5566, whose sales were all within 10,000 copies of Jay.

Since Jolin's heavily publicized flash-in-the-pan fling with Jay, she's found herself tangled in several relationship webs, the latest of which is her connection to TV show host Little Pig (小豬), who only recently broke up with Makiyo, the model whose big break came with a series of Panasonic cellphone ads several years ago and which she tried unsuccessfully to parlay that into a singing and acting career. But, when Little Pig discovered that Makiyo started dating singer Law Chi-cheung (羅志祥) soon after their breakup, he dropped Jolin and, according to Next Magazine (壹週刊), went crying to Makiyo, who took him back, but only on condition that she did not have to report her daily activities to Little Pig's mother, which was their previous arrangement.

A similar drama unfolded in Hong Kong last week when Leon Lai (黎明) and Shu Qi (舒琪) were reported to have separated for the n-th time -- on this occasion because Faye Wong (王菲) and Leon were rumored to have hooked up since the Mando-pop diva's breakup with Nicholas Tse (謝霆鋒) a few weeks ago. According to China Times Weekly (時報周刊), Shu Qi hasn't been able to win a long-term commitment from Leon because his father disapproves of her history as a celebrated soft-core porn actress and refuses to even meet her.