Mando-pop queen Faye Wang (王菲) has cleaned up her act and is determined to stay away from liquor, cigarettes and late-night parties these days. The reason is simple: she is three-months pregnant. Once reported to have said, "to love a man is to have his children," the 36-year-old star is keeping to her word and expecting her second child, from her second marriage to Li Ya-peng (李亞鵬).
Hong Kong paparazzi last week spotted a crew of removal men descending on Wang's mansion. One day later, hundreds of boxes, already tightly packed on the moving trucks, were waiting to be transported to the star's hometown of Beijing. The diva will stay there and concentrate on being an expectant mom till next May when the baby is due.
As a hopeless romantic who is said to do anything for the men she loves, Wang has given her husband a mansion, a pub, a restaurant, an agency firm and now a baby. So let's hope Wang can score well in her relentless search for happiness.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
Making a return to show biz after a nasty accident, Lin Chi-ling (林志玲) immediately became the favorite quarry of media on both sides of the Strait. Chinese media revealed that Lin recently traveled to Beijing to audition for a part in John Woo's (吳宇森) historical drama Battle of the Red Cliff (
Starring Chow Yun-fat (周潤發), the film is said to be part of Woo's ambitious project to "make a comeback" in the Chinese market. If selected, the local supermodel's path to international stardom is pretty much assured.
Four years ago, Stone (石頭) of rock band May Day (五月天) proposed live to his then girlfriend at a concert and has been happily married ever since. Following a similar route, another band member, Guan You (冠佑), kneeled down in front of tens of thousands of fans at a May Day concert in Beijing and asked his girlfriend of nine-months to marry him. The answer was yes. Amid cheers, red rose petals and tears of happiness, the couple is set to tie the knot next year.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
A new list of favorite metro-sexual celebrities came out last week. According to the results of a month-long poll conducted by China Times Publishing , Takashi Kaneshiro (金城武) beat David Beckham and Brad Pitt to be crowned the most beautiful straight man in the world. Also on the list are New York Yankees player Wang Chien-ming (王建民), South Korean star Bae Yong-joon (裴勇俊) and Taipei Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九).
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
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
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist