At the Venice International Film Festival awards ceremony last Saturday, Ang Lee (
The novelist said that during the judging panel's intense meetings, some members thought Lee's film wasn't impressive enough and wanted to let Good Night, and Good Luck by George Clooney win the top award. "But I convinced them that Brokeback Mountain was almost perfect, in every aspect. And eventually I turned the judges' opinions around and saved the film," Zhong is quoted as saying in the Apple Daily (
Perhaps we should have known film festival awards are less focused on artistic achievements, and are rather based on ethnic considerations and the art of persuasion commonly exerted by salespersons. Our mistake.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
Mando-pop star Little S (
marriage, following the newly weds wherever they went, from the airport, to the ceremony, to a private family gathering. Most entertainment pages were taken over by photos of the star's
smiling face, with commentaries saying she is the luckiest woman on earth because the mom-to-be married a man who could provide financial security and a connection to a family which is far more valuable than her career.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
So, gays, feminists and radical socialists beware! Traditional family values are making a comeback, and the ideas of marriage and having babies are still deeply rooted in society's collective consciousness. And yes, brave comrades, there is still a long way to go.
Ken Chu (朱孝天) of boy band F4 and Taiwanese sex kitten Kelly Lin (林熙蕾) have emerged as the latest hot couple in showbiz. According to the Liberty Times (自由時報), the couple has been secretly dating for a while, but the affair was downplayed by friends. "Lin has so many
admirers. This long-distance romance will definitely be the shortest-lived relationship ever," one mutual friend is quoted as saying in the daily.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
Chu doesn't seem to mind the ill-intended prediction. Judging from snap shots of him attending a wedding last weekend, the young guy seems to have let himself go with a dodgy mustache and an outfit that should have caught the attention of the fashion police.
Disney World in Hong Kong had a grand opening this week, and a troupe of super stars were invited to show up. Local media paid especially close attention to the interaction between two Chinese divas, Gong Li (
The unexpected collapse of the recall campaigns is being viewed through many lenses, most of them skewed and self-absorbed. The international media unsurprisingly focuses on what they perceive as the message that Taiwanese voters were sending in the failure of the mass recall, especially to China, the US and to friendly Western nations. This made some sense prior to early last month. One of the main arguments used by recall campaigners for recalling Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers was that they were too pro-China, and by extension not to be trusted with defending the nation. Also by extension, that argument could be
Aug. 4 to Aug. 10 When Coca-Cola finally pushed its way into Taiwan’s market in 1968, it allegedly vowed to wipe out its major domestic rival Hey Song within five years. But Hey Song, which began as a manual operation in a family cow shed in 1925, had proven its resilience, surviving numerous setbacks — including the loss of autonomy and nearly all its assets due to the Japanese colonial government’s wartime economic policy. By the 1960s, Hey Song had risen to the top of Taiwan’s beverage industry. This success was driven not only by president Chang Wen-chi’s
Last week, on the heels of the recall election that turned out so badly for Taiwan, came the news that US President Donald Trump had blocked the transit of President William Lai (賴清德) through the US on his way to Latin America. A few days later the international media reported that in June a scheduled visit by Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo (顧立雄) for high level meetings was canceled by the US after China’s President Xi Jinping (習近平) asked Trump to curb US engagement with Taiwan during a June phone call. The cancellation of Lai’s transit was a gaudy
The centuries-old fiery Chinese spirit baijiu (白酒), long associated with business dinners, is being reshaped to appeal to younger generations as its makers adapt to changing times. Mostly distilled from sorghum, the clear but pungent liquor contains as much as 60 percent alcohol. It’s the usual choice for toasts of gan bei (乾杯), the Chinese expression for bottoms up, and raucous drinking games. “If you like to drink spirits and you’ve never had baijiu, it’s kind of like eating noodles but you’ve never had spaghetti,” said Jim Boyce, a Canadian writer and wine expert who founded World Baijiu Day a decade
RSS