Fri, Apr 08, 2005 - Page 14 News List

POP STOP

Compiled by Ho Yi  /  STAFF REPORTER

Silence is golden, if you're star Takeshi Kaneshiro.

PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES

The annual musical pilgrimage to Spring Scream has come to an end and Kenting is once again restored to its tropical quiet. But on a peaceful, breezy early Monday morning on the beach, singer Shino Lin (林曉培), a guest musician at the festival, was spotted lying on top of a rugged young man in after-party languor, near a group of dozens of people enjoying a beautiful sunrise and camp fire. As the sun got higher and warmer, the seemingly wasted singer finally got up but could barely walk without her friends coming to her aid.

Later that day, Shino

confirmed to the Apple Daily (蘋果日報) in a sleepy voice, that the man in question is her new sweetheart, Anson, a very good-looking stud who works at a pub and loves to surf. The singer also firmly asserted that she and her friends were legally drunk and didn't take any dubious substance that would provoke law enforcement.

Another couple wasn't so lucky to get away from the watchful eyes of the media so easily. The questionable extramarital affair between the former TVBS sportscaster Cheng Sheng-hung (陳勝鴻) and TVBS-N news channel anchorwoman Pan Yen-fei (潘彥妃) has dominated the gossip pages for two consecutive weeks now. It's impossible to get away from the media hype even if you try.

Accused by one of his many ex-girlfriends -- a woman identified as Miss Lin -- that he videotapes his sexual encounters without his partner's consent, Cheng has changed his testimony back and forth, saying once that Pan was fully aware when the intimate pictures of them kissing and cuddling were taken, but saying something totally different later.

Most of the main characters in this show have been telling their self-contradictory, fabricated stories while following their instincts for self-preservation. But Pan is refusing to play the leading lady in the soap opera any more. The married anchorwoman quit her job right after the affair was exposed and intimate photos took up the front pages of every local newspaper. She left a confessional note to the public last Friday, saying in a tortured, heart-broken tone, ``I've left Taiwan and won't be back for a long long time. I will vanish in silence.''

Not every love story is X-rated and promiscuous. Hong Kong's sweetheart Lin Jia-xin (林嘉欣) blew a refreshing breeze into the gossip scene when she was spotted going to a musical with her musician boyfriend, Chen Guang-rong (陳光容). Wearing jeans, sneakers and black-framed glasses, the star looked even prettier without traces of make-up. Rumor has it that Lin's agent got really pissed at her high-profile romance and decided to ``freeze'' her. The smiling young actress denied the freeze talks, saying she is just taking a break from her busy schedule and has been having a great time with her honey.

It was recently reported that Takeshi Kaneshiro (金城武) has an evil brother living on the dark side, who owes the Taiwanese mafia a huge debt and has been on the lam for a while now. The star is following the code of secrecy, or "omerta," about the affair and at a recent beauty-product endorsement press conference in Shanghai on Tuesday, the organizer got really nervous about a possible confrontation between the media and the star, deciding to limit reporters to five questions each. One local media member, however, broke the rules and popped the forbidden question. The princely star said nothing and gave a charming smile instead. Magically, everybody seemed melted by his angelic beauty and forgot he was just masterfully dodging the unwelcome subject.

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