With all the buzz about super models these days, it was only a matter of time before competition over who will be the next hottest thing after Lin Chih-ling (林志玲) began to flare up in public. Model and actress Lily Tien (田麗) took a bold swipe at model and TV-show hostess Hung Hsiao-lei (洪曉蕾) on Hung's girl-oriented talk show on Monday during an exclusive interview on Super TV. Looking Hung in the face, Tien said, "Models who try to be TV hostesses are all amateurs. I'm an expert."
Later, when the Great Daily News (
There was more cattiness in celebrity circles this week when model Pace Wu (吳佩慈) not-so-politely refused an invitation to promote her new book Beauty Expert (美麗達人) on entertainment talk-show host Mickey Huang's (黃子佼) show. Wu is a close friend of Little S (小S), who was dropped quite publicly and dramatically by Huang about three years ago and the fallout from that episode evidently
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
lingers to this day. Responding to questions about her refusal to appear on the show, she said, "The best thing Mickey ever did for Little S was to break up with her.
She added, "If I knew [Huang's current girlfriend] Bao-bao (寶寶) earlier, I'd have told her not to get together with Mickey."
Not one to take a cheap shot sitting down, Huang, who is a best-selling author in Taiwan, countered with a reported tone of sharp sarcasm, "I wish her luck with her new book."
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
A final chapter in the extramarital affair between TVBS anchors Chen Sheng-hung (
The alarming tone of the message leads one to hope that Pan is somewhere quiet and picturesque cooling her jets and regaining some much needed perspective. Maybe she could go to Africa, where the romance with Chen was reportedly first sparked, and talk to a few people with far better reasons to feel sorry for themselves.
Jay Chou (周杰倫) was in Shanghai over the weekend to promote his new movie Initial D (頭文字D) and landed in a bit of hot water by going to one of the city's better-known hostess bars. Always watchful of snooping media, Jay stayed in the clear by drinking watermelon juice all night and keeping his hands firmly wrapped around his glass, according to Next Magazine (壹週刊). One of the hostesses quoted in the report even did him a favor, though probably unwittingly, by saying Jay was "pretty boring."
PHOTO: AP
Concerns were voiced in several media over the weekend about the box-office prospects in China of Jay's movie, which is adapted from a popular Japanese comic book and was shot in Japan with Ann Suzuki (鈴木杏) and a Hong Kong all-star cast of Edison Chan (陳冠希) and Anthony Wong (黃秋生). There is fear that the current tide of anti-Japanese sentiment will keep people away from theaters -- or worse.
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
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