The biggest extravaganza taking place in Chinese-speaking showbiz circles this week is TV hostess Momoko Tao (
Tao's close friend, Chinese singer Na Ying (那英) reportedly blurted out her true feelings via a private phonecall with Tao. "You really have the guts to ask for wedding money as far away as Beijing?" Na is quoted as saying in a Chinese-language daily.
Family values are back in fashion with stars tying the knot and having babies all over the place. Sexy mom Chen Xiao-xuan (
Curiously, the former victim of domestic violence Wang Jing-yin (
Roving reporters turned their attention to the sexy mom's erstwhile boyfriend, TV host Jackie Wu (
But Wu didn't keep his month shut about his former buddy Hu Gua's (
As rumors of Hu's cheating at an illegal gambling joint mount, his market value seems to be rapidly going down. The scandal has so far cost him millions of dollars in missed opportunities to host year-end TV shows and wei ya (
Mando-pop queen A-mei(
A-mei's agent said the star's fee for wei ya shows will stay the same despite increasing market demand, that is, NT$3 million for a single show. Simple math suggests the star's year-end bonuses from local enterprises could easily exceed hundreds of millions of bucks.
A-mei proved a hit at the gay bar Funky on Hangzhou S Rd, Taipei (
Singaporean singer Stefanie Sun (
A recent report from the Environmental Management Administration of the Ministry of Environment highlights a perennial problem: illegal dumping of construction waste. In Taoyuan’s Yangmei District (楊梅) and Hsinchu’s Longtan District (龍潭) criminals leased 10,000 square meters of farmland, saying they were going to engage in horticulture. They then accepted between 40,000 and 50,000 cubic meters of construction waste from sites in northern Taiwan, charging less than the going rate for disposal, and dumped the waste concrete, tile, metal and glass onto the leased land. Taoyuan District prosecutors charged 33 individuals from seven companies with numerous violations of the law. This
What is the importance within the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) of the meeting between Xi Jinping (習近平), the leader Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), the leader of the KMT? Local media is an excellent guide to determine how important — or unimportant — a news event is to the public. Taiwan has a vast online media ecosystem, and if a news item is gaining traction among readers, editors shift resources in near real time to boost coverage to meet the demand and drive up traffic. Cheng’s China trip is among the top headlines, but by no means
As mega K-pop group BTS returns to the stage after a hiatus of more than three years, one major market is conspicuously missing from its 12-month world tour: China. The omission of one of the group’s biggest fan bases comes as no surprise. In fact, just the opposite would have been huge news. China has blocked most South Korean entertainment since 2016 under an unofficial ban that also restricts movies and the country’s popular TV dramas. For some Chinese, that means flying to Seoul to see their favorite groups perform — as many were expected to do for three shows opening
Apr. 13 to Apr. 19 From 17th-century royalty and Presbyterian missionaries to White Terror victims, cultural figures and industrialists, Nanshan Public Cemetery (南山公墓) sprawls across 95 hectares, guarding four centuries of Taiwan’s history. Current estimates show more than 60,000 graves, the earliest dating to 1642. Besides individual tombs, there are also hundreds of family plots, one of which is said to contain around 1,000 remains. As the cemetery occupies valuable land in the heart of Tainan, the government in 2018 began asking families to relocate the graves to make way for development. That