In the absence of a real scandal, Next Magazine (壹週刊) is certainly not above insinuating one, as long as there are a few tidbits of "evidence," preferably photographic, that make the story appear semi-credible. So, this week, the gossip rag snuck into Jacky Wu's (吳宗憲) room at the Macau Hyatt, where he, fellow TV host Nono and a bevvy of other B-grade starlets, were shooting an episode of their Sunday show and discovered two used condoms in his bedside trash can and printed some rather gross photos of the offending prophylactics. By this point, everyone knows that Jacky is not exactly the paragon of family man, so somehow his much-storied and colorful sex life barely seems to qualify as a scandal. And doesn't he deserve some credit for practicing safe sex? The Department of Health would be the first to endorse that view, given the abysmally low rate of condom use in Taiwan.
More hanky panky was in the news this week when The Liberty Times
Jordan's on-and-off love interest Cecilia Cheung (
In Hong Kong, actress Shu Qi
Taiwan's newspapers had a field day with TV actor Lee Wei
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless
Approaching her mid-30s, Xiong Yidan reckons that most of her friends are on to their second or even third babies. But Xiong has more than a dozen. There is Lucky, the street dog from Bangkok who jumped into a taxi with her and never left. There is Sophie and Ben, sibling geese, who honk from morning to night. Boop and Pan, both goats, are romantically involved. Dumpling the hedgehog enjoys a belly rub from time to time. The list goes on. Xiong nurtures her brood from her 8,000 square meter farm in Chiang Dao, a mountainous district in northern Thailand’s