Always one to speak candidly, if not always eloquently, Jackie Chan (
The official release party for Sun Yanzi's (孫燕姿) new album was held Wednesday at the Far Eastern Hotel in Taipei, the highlight of which was a sneak preview of an 8-minute film that's like the extended remix of the first video off the album for My Love (
PHOTO: AP
A final decree was issued last week by China's Ministry of Culture, which serves as the gatekeeper for publication imports, declaring that Alex To's (杜德偉) album Take it Off (脫掉) would be barred from distribution within the country. The album was released in July, but had been stalled by censors concerned about the propriety of the highly suggestive sexual tone of To's album. To's label, Rock Records, said in response, that it plans to package the album with other soon-to-be-released products in China. Pop Stop has heard from sources in China, though, that the album was out there long ago in pirate form and was pretty much already forgotten.
PHOTO: AP
Hong Kong singer/actress Kelly Chen (
Perhaps the most exciting news of the past week was the announcement that Godzilla will be awarded a star on Hollywood Boulevard. The nuclear monstrosity, who's often conflicted and always misunderstood by humans in his movies, will get to make his imprint in the pavement in front of the city's Chinese Theatre on Nov. 29, which will mark the world premiere of the 28th and last Godzilla movie Godzilla Final Wars. Before hanging up his rubber suit, in the last flick Godzilla gets to indulge in an orgy of city stomping, this time through Shanghai, Paris, New York and Sydney.
If one asks Taiwanese why house prices are so high or why the nation is so built up or why certain policies cannot be carried out, one common answer is that “Taiwan is too small.” This is actually true, though not in the way people think. The National Property Administration (NPA), responsible for tracking and managing the government’s real estate assets, maintains statistics on how much land the government owns. As of the end of last year, land for official use constituted 293,655 hectares, for public use 1,732,513 hectares, for non-public use 216,972 hectares and for state enterprises 34 hectares, yielding
The small platform at Duoliang Train Station in Taitung County’s Taimali Township (太麻里) served villagers from 1992 to 2006, but was eventually shut down due to lack of use. Just 10 years later, the abandoned train station had become widely known as the most beautiful station in Taiwan, and visitors were so frequent that the village had to start restricting traffic. Nowadays, Duoliang Village (多良) is known as a bit of a tourist trap, with a mandatory, albeit modest, admission fee of NT$10 giving access to a crowded lane of vendors with a mediocre view of the ocean and the trains
Traditionally, indigenous people in Taiwan’s mountains practice swidden cultivation, or “slash and burn” agriculture, a practice common in human history. According to a 2016 research article in the International Journal of Environmental Sustainability, among the Atayal people, this began with a search for suitable forested slopeland. The trees are burnt for fertilizer and the land cleared of stones. The stones and wood are then piled up to make fences, while both dead and standing trees are retained on the plot. The fences are used to grow climbing crops like squash and beans. The plot itself supports farming for three years.
President William Lai (賴清德) on Nov. 25 last year announced in a Washington Post op-ed that “my government will introduce a historic US$40 billion supplementary defense budget, an investment that underscores our commitment to defending Taiwan’s democracy.” Lai promised “significant new arms acquisitions from the United States” and to “invest in cutting-edge technologies and expand Taiwan’s defense industrial base,” to “bolster deterrence by inserting greater costs and uncertainties into Beijing’s decision-making on the use of force.” Announcing it in the Washington Post was a strategic gamble, both geopolitically and domestically, with Taiwan’s international credibility at stake. But Lai’s message was exactly
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