Boy bands are supposed to be filled with doe-eyed cuddly hunks, right? Not necessarily, as proven by the disconcerting news last week that Chang Shu-wei (張書偉) of the band Energy, finalized an out-of-court settlement with an ex-girlfriend, whom he beat in November of 2002. According to a report in the Liberty Times (自由時報), Chang's ex-girlfriend, surnamed Hsieh (謝), came to Chang's house to wake him for class and for doing that favor was beaten in the head, neck and back by Chang, who was reportedly still drunk from the previous night's revelry and did not want to get out of bed. Chang reportedly threw his comforter over Hsieh, trapping her underneath it, and beat and kicked her. Hsieh was treated at Renai Hospital for minor cuts and bruises. The two sides reached a settlement for NT$160,000.
After pseudo-alternative rock singer Chang Chen-yue's (張震嶽) stunt comparing Taiwanese and Western sausage sizes (Taiwanese are much bigger) last week for the media, as reported in Pop Stop, the singer aimed a sharp comment at Jay Chou (周杰倫) on TVBS-G this week. On the station's entertainment news show, A-yue (阿嶽) said Jay's songs sucked and that the supposed king of Mando-pop hadn't improved since coming onto the scene some four years ago. The China Times (中國時報) followed up with a call to Jay's label Alfa, which indulged with a simple barbed rebuke that album sales should speak for themselves. Chang sells a fraction of Jay's total album sales.
Last weekend Lee Hom Wang (王立宏) showed his ambitions of climbing the ladder toward becoming the biggest star in Mando-pop with a huge concert in Shanghai attended by 80,000 fans. Wang set a record for a Taiwanese pop star putting on a show in China by spending NT$20 million on the stage, sound system and lights. Even the misty rains that fell all month in Shanghai let up for the show, a stroke of luck attributed in reports to Wang's lucky pair of black underwear that he wears for shows. Not in attendance at the concert was Wang's buddy A-mei (阿妹), but the crowd chanted her name nevertheless. If Chinese fans of A-mei were upset she couldn't make Wang's Shanghai show, they'll be vindicated in Beijing at the end of this month when she puts on a concert in Beijing -- barring any last-minute
PHOTO: LIBERTY TIMES
complications.
Hebe of the red-hot girl band S.H.E. revealed something new about herself in Sunday's Apple Daily (蘋果日報). In a tender reminiscence to a moment in elementary school, the singer said she accidentally let rip with a fart that was audible to the entire school amassed at the morning flag-raising ceremony. Hebe said she tried to play it off as though nothing had happened.
Always ready to rub salt in wounds, Next Magazine (壹週刊) made a cover story this week of Little S' reaction to the reported love affair between TV news anchor Hou Pei-tsen (
TV host and crooner Chang Fei (張菲) has been ultra-busy lately, having released an album of old lounge tunes and doing the voice-over for the Chinese version of the animated Garfield movie due out July 23. At the press conference announcing the movie's upcoming release, Chang said he was perfect for the role because, like Garfield, he is "humorous, interesting, smart, lazy and lecherous."
May 6 to May 12 Those who follow the Chinese-language news may have noticed the usage of the term zhuge (豬哥, literally ‘pig brother,’ a male pig raised for breeding purposes) in reports concerning the ongoing #Metoo scandal in the entertainment industry. The term’s modern connotations can range from womanizer or lecher to sexual predator, but it once referred to an important rural trade. Until the 1970s, it was a common sight to see a breeder herding a single “zhuge” down a rustic path with a bamboo whip, often traveling large distances over rugged terrain to service local families. Not only
Ahead of incoming president William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20 there appear to be signs that he is signaling to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and that the Chinese side is also signaling to the Taiwan side. This raises a lot of questions, including what is the CCP up to, who are they signaling to, what are they signaling, how with the various actors in Taiwan respond and where this could ultimately go. In the last column, published on May 2, we examined the curious case of Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) heavyweight Tseng Wen-tsan (鄭文燦) — currently vice premier
The last time Mrs Hsieh came to Cihu Park in Taoyuan was almost 50 years ago, on a school trip to the grave of Taiwan’s recently deceased dictator. Busloads of children were brought in to pay their respects to Chiang Kai-shek (蔣中正), known as Generalissimo, who had died at 87, after decades ruling Taiwan under brutal martial law. “There were a lot of buses, and there was a long queue,” Hsieh recalled. “It was a school rule. We had to bow, and then we went home.” Chiang’s body is still there, under guard in a mausoleum at the end of a path
Last week the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS) released a set of very strange numbers on Taiwan’s wealth distribution. Duly quoted in the Taipei Times, the report said that “The Gini coefficient for Taiwanese households… was 0.606 at the end of 2021, lower than Australia’s 0.611, the UK’s 0.620, Japan’s 0.678, France’s 0.676 and Germany’s 0.727, the agency said in a report.” The Gini coefficient is a measure of relative inequality, usually of wealth or income, though it can be used to evaluate other forms of inequality. However, for most nations it is a number from .25 to .50