Margarita Laurouskaya (
Well, a mermaid, actually. She came to Taiwan about four years ago from Belarus Athletic University along with a few classmates to join a team of synchronized swimmers that would perform nightly shows at a Taichung theme park that might be better described as a burlesque.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
Troupes of girls predominantly from former Soviet bloc states -- jin si mao (
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
"My mother was working in a company where she could check all about the place where I was supposed to work and about Taiwan," she said in an interview this week. "She did a lot of checking and felt it was a legitimate show. So I came."
She and her classmates chose to abandon their university studies because the show would have them earning more in six months than they'd make in a year in Belarus. And so Margarita became a mermaid and had her picture blown up large on the show's poster.
"It was easy," she said of her experience in the show. "In Belarus we train to do this from when we're little and now we can do it here and make money. We don't have this kind of stuff in my country. We just do championship stuff. So everyone looks for work at water parks in Japan, France, America ? and Taiwan."
But after eight months in a scaly Spandex mermaid suit, Margarita was swum out. She returned to Belarus for about six months but decided her prospects were better back in Taiwan.
"I didn't want to jump from here ? to here," she said using her hands to indicate a precipitous drop.
But success in Taiwan meant having to learn the language. She'd met an agent, Kelly Chin (金玉珮), who said she could get her on television if she could speak Chinese. So Margarita holed-up in her apartment, leaving only to eat, attend Chinese class and for occasional modeling assignments. The rest of the time she spent watching television -- not for entertainment as much as education.
"I would really listen to what they were saying. This is how I learned Chinese," she said. "But you can't just learn the language, you have to learn the culture too."
Her break came a year later when Apple Daily (蘋果日報) ran a full-page pictorial on synchronized swimming that featured her. Taiwan's popular television host, Chang Fei (張菲), got one look at Margarita the mermaid and reeled her in.
She's been swimming, dancing and donning an endless array of bikinis on Chang's show every week since the beginning of this year -- earning a reported NT$200,000 a month for her troubles -- and was rumored to have danced her way into Chang's heart.
So is there anything going on between she and Chang?
"No."
Isn't he interested in her?
"I don't know," she said, then turned to ask her agent, Chin, who chaperoned her interview. "Is Chang Fei interested in me?"
"He's that way with all the girls," Chin says.
What about the guy Next magazine surreptitiously photographed her with? Margarita managed to look coy in a leopard-print bikini on the magazine's cover two weeks ago and an inside expose showed pictures of her with her "boyfriend" -- a guy far younger and less hirsute than Chang.
"That's my roommate," she explains. "Next magazine and Apple Daily followed me for two weeks trying to find something to write about. But there isn't anything. I'm too busy to have a boyfriend. I don't have time to go out."
Her schedule is taken up, she says, by taping Chang's show on Tuesdays, meeting to decide the content of the next week's show on Friday, and spending all weekend preparing for it. Rehearsals can be all-consuming. Weeks ago, she had to rent a gu zhen (
"The rest of the week, I have modeling shoots and press conferences," she said. "And I have a biography coming out later this month. It's all ready, except for the photos."
But for all the time she spends wearing bikinis in front of cameras, Margarita doesn't consider herself a professional model. Her job, she says, is simply to entertain people.
"I tried doing the serial television programs," she said, "but filming those shows isn't fun. I think you should have fun doing the show. The audience will see that and they'll have fun too."
It's a good philosophy, gauging by the reaction of people who watch her every week.
"Her ballet maybe isn't very professional, but it looks great on television!" said one avid watcher. "She's great because she comes across as nice and sweet and you can tell she really likes Taiwan."
Her goal, she says, is to host a television program of her own, but she doesn't rule out getting involved in film either.
"I just want to be a part in something that is quality," she said, emphasizing the word "part."
Asked if she's afraid that her fame is fleeting, Margarita reveals a side to her personality that likely helped gain her fame in the first place.
"Of course, all this won't last," she said smiling. "But I'm happy and feel very lucky for everything that has happened. I can always teach kids how to swim."
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
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
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist