Three weeks ago, East Weekly (東週刊) thought it had a scoop when it reported Candy Lee's (
The normal reaction to this kind of news that we've come to expect is either a denial or an angry accusation, but Chung's agent surprised most when she told Hong Kong media that Chung "grew up abroad," and that given this background, her behavior wasn't, in fact, odd at all. You know, foreigners simply are like that.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMESNN
More weird sexual candor was in the news this week when the China Times Weekly (時報週刊) dropped a bomb in its recent edition with an interview with A-hsien (阿賢), Taiwan's most famous (because he's Taiwan's only) male porn star. After gaining considerable fame last year with his Taiwan Plumber (台灣水電工) classic, he's gone on to do a naked picture book of himself and most recently has been offering his sexual services for NT$5,000 a pop. Responding to questions about his new job, A-hsien said: "If there's money to make, I might as well earn it," and "I don't do it often because I don't make that much. I have to give a cut to my pimp."
Play magazine, meanwhile, released the results of a reader poll it conducted to determine which artist was most likely to "do the splits" (劈腿), meaning to cheat on their significant other. Not surprisingly, Jacky Wu (吳宗憲) topped the list thanks to his latest misadventures with the girls who are referred to in local media as "cleavage girl" and "butt crack girl."
The two were in Wu's car when he was arrested last month for drunk driving and have since sparked a sort of underwear-no underwear fashion debate in the media. Runner up was Lin Wei-chun (林韋君), who became a household name for her tryst last year with Hsu Shao-yang (許紹洋), who, oddly, was ranked 16th in the poll. Proof of a double standard against women? Perhaps. Hsu Chun-mei (許純美), the painfully awkward would-be TV hostess placed third.
TV host and king of the one-liner Chang Fei (張菲) made the leap into the music business last week with the release of When I Fall In Love: Collection Of Love Ballads. As the title suggests, the CD is full of old crooner stand-bys like Strangers in the Night, which, when sung in Chang's noticeable accent, are quite funny. Because Chang is a consummate joker on TV, the media hasn't quite known how to present the album. The Apple Daily, though, seized on heartthrob singer Alec Su's (蘇有朋) characterization of Chang on the album as sounding like an "old American black man." [See the review of Chang's album on Sunday].
Su later followed up by assuring that he meant it as a compliment. But anyway, the songs on the album are old Las Vegas casino lounge numbers, which not many African Americans sang in the first place.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby