After years away from the glamorous catwalk, former supermodel Wang Jing-ying (
Chen, a successful business man, didn't waste a minute in striking back: He immediately held his own press conference to deny all the accusations, and Chen's family said Wang had
suffered from severe post-partum depression and was in an unstable state of mind. Both sides are telling completely contrasting stories, and this mystery remains to be solved. Of course, the paparazzi are on the case.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
The local press is spinning the tragedy as another failed example of a beautiful female star trying to marry into a rich family and live happily ever after. The line is that this is the price that beautiful women may have to pay if they aim for the money -- that it's the law of the up-scale marriage market.
Amid all the confusion, one thing is for sure: The fairy-tales about princes and princesses are all just big fat lies, and don't you children fall for it.
In a charity event he attended on Monday, Hong Kong mega star Andy Lau seemed distracted by the excitement over his new Toyota car. The NT$2 million vehicle is said to be a paparazzi-proof, high-tech piece of machinery. It is equipped with surveillance cameras both on the front and at the back, that detects any movement near the car. Passengers are cosseted in the back of the car, which is said to be nearly impregnable. Carina Lau (劉嘉玲), Joey Yung (容祖兒) and Leon Lai (黎明) are all reportedly big fans of this paparazzi-defeating car.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
Notorious for her extravagant life style and amazingly rich love life, Hong Kong party queen Zhang Xiao-hui (章小蕙) revealed on Momoko Tao's (陶子) new TV show Peach Protein (桃色蛋白質) her plans to start a new life in New York. She denied the rumor that she is trying to run away from a NT$1 billion debt by emigrating to the Land of Opportunity, saying Hong Kong was a repressive place to live for women, and she just wanted to wave goodbye to the past and start again somewhere new.
``As for the debts, I don't have any. I have job offers for movies and TV commercials. I can support myself in New York,'' Zhang said, even though she hasn't done any substantial work in the past few years. Clearly, she's a good example of how to maintain an upper-class lifestyle using only excellent social skills.
The godmother of the entertainment business in Taiwan, Chang Hsiao-yen (張小燕), announced that she was taking leave of her TV show last Friday, which left the local media speculating on whether or not the beloved TV hostess would retire from showbiz altogether. Chang said she was calling it quits because she didn't want to comply with the rules of the game in the newly established bloodthirsty paparazzi culture. ``I hope I can do a program I like. If increasing the ratings means I have to hurt my friends, I'd rather leave,'' she told the Great Daily News (大成報).
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
A few weeks ago I found myself at a Family Mart talking with the morning shift worker there, who has become my coffee guy. Both of us were in a funk over the “unseasonable” warm weather, a state of mind known as “solastalgia” — distress produced by environmental change. In fact, the weather was not that out of the ordinary in boiling Central Taiwan, and likely cooler than the temperatures we will experience in the near-future. According to the Taiwan Adaptation Platform, between 1957 and 2006, summer lengthened by 27.8 days, while winter shrunk by 29.7 days. Winter is not
Taiwan’s post-World War II architecture, “practical, cheap and temporary,” not to mention “rather forgettable.” This was a characterization recently given by Taiwan-based historian John Ross on his Formosa Files podcast. Yet the 1960s and 1970s were, in fact, the period of Taiwan’s foundational building boom, which, to a great extent, defined the look of Taiwan’s cities, determining the way denizens live today. During this period, functionalist concrete blocks and Chinese nostalgia gave way to new interpretations of modernism, large planned communities and high-rise skyscrapers. It is currently the subject of a new exhibition at the Taipei Fine Arts Museum, Modern
March 25 to March 31 A 56-year-old Wu Li Yu-ke (吳李玉哥) was straightening out her artist son’s piles of drawings when she inadvertently flipped one over, revealing the blank backside of the paper. Absent-mindedly, she picked up a pencil and recalled how she used to sketch embroidery designs for her clothing business. Without clients and budget or labor constraints to worry about, Wu Li drew freely whatever image came to her mind. With much more free time now that her son had found a job, she found herself missing her home village in China, where she
In recent years, Slovakia has been seen as a highly democratic and Western-oriented Central European country. This image was reinforced by the election of the country’s first female president in 2019, efforts to provide extensive assistance to Ukraine and the strengthening of relations with Taiwan, all of which strengthened Slovakia’s position within the European Union. However, the latest developments in the country suggest that the situation is changing rapidly. As such, the presidential elections to be held on March 23 will be an indicator of whether Slovakia remains in the Western sphere of influence or moves eastward, notably towards Russia and