Jay Chou (周杰倫) and Patty Hou’s (侯佩岑) break-up continues to dominate gossip rag stories with local hacks this week claiming Hou’s new NT$2 million Jaguar is a parting gift.
Enraged by the accusation, the Mando-pop king lashed out with a series of counterattacks at gossip mongers on his official Web site, saying the car was bought through a car-dealer friend of his and paid for by Hou’s mother. Meanwhile, the former lady of the house is trying to put the whole ordeal behind her by following the wisdom of the ancient Chinese proverb, “grief is best forgotten by hard work.” A sparkling, new set of wheels may help as well.
On the other side of the Taiwan strait, Chou’s other ex, Jolin Tsai (蔡依林), sent audience members into a frenzy with acrobatic stunts and limber moves at her Hong Kong Colosseum gig. Despite the performance, and the star’s on-stage chemistry with co-performer ABT pop star Stanley Huang (黃立行), the Mando-pop queen failed to distract the media’s attention from the failed Double-J romance.
When asked by the press how she felt about Hou’s expensive “gift” while the only thing she got from Chou was a Hello Kitty flower basket, Tsai quipped, “that’s right, look how generous he was.”
Japan’s five-piece boy band Arashi has been in Taipei for two sold-out weekend concerts at Taipei Arena (台北巨蛋). The pretty-faced pop idols not only attracted a welcoming committee of over 200 screaming local fans at the airport, many of them skipping class and work to do so, but brought along some 1,200 devotees from Japan: a boost for Taipei’s tourism.
It is estimated that the weekend influx of Japanese fans could have spent NT$80 million. In return for their support, the organizers arranged an exclusive meeting for the Japanese fans to meet their idols in person, whereas local groupies had to slaver from a distance.
Ge You (葛優), the award-winning star of Feng Xiaogang’s (馮小剛) The Banquet (夜宴), was in town this week to promote the movie. He turned on the charm and wooed Taiwan’s hungry media hounds by throwing them morsels of information from behind the scenes of the historical drama, the most explosive of which was that 40-year-old megastar Gong Li (鞏俐) lost out to 27-year-old Zhang Ziyi (章子怡) for the leading female role.
“Li is in the prime of her life and her maturity as an actress serves her well on the international level. But in China, her age has become an obstacle,” Ge told members of the local press pack.
Not only do actresses need to be young these days, being cute helps a lot too. A glance at the local show-biz industry shows that ke ai (可愛), or the appropriation of “cuteness” in popular culture (and let’s not forget that cuteness is a perennial theme in Japan’s pop world) is manna for those who worship at the temple of youth.
The local music industry is a tough business. Having fallen on hard times, the members of rock combo Shin (信樂團) have taken second jobs.
While the band’s guitarist, Christ, recently opened a shop selling refreshments and desserts at Raoho Street night market (饒河街夜市), lead singer A-Shin (阿信) pays the bills by appearing as a character in a TV soap opera. Drummer Michael is perhaps the luckiest of all as he does what he loves most for a living: teaching children to play drums.
Last week Joseph Nye, the well-known China scholar, wrote on the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s website about how war over Taiwan might be averted. He noted that years ago he was on a team that met with then-president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁), “whose previous ‘unofficial’ visit to the US had caused a crisis in which China fired missiles into the sea and the US deployed carriers off the coast of Taiwan.” Yes, that’s right, mighty Chen caused that crisis all by himself. Neither the US nor the People’s Republic of China (PRC) exercised any agency. Nye then nostalgically invoked the comical specter
April 15 to April 21 Yang Kui (楊逵) was horrified as he drove past trucks, oxcarts and trolleys loaded with coffins on his way to Tuntzechiao (屯子腳), which he heard had been completely destroyed. The friend he came to check on was safe, but most residents were suffering in the town hit the hardest by the 7.1-magnitude Hsinchu-Taichung Earthquake on April 21, 1935. It remains the deadliest in Taiwan’s recorded history, claiming around 3,300 lives and injuring nearly 12,000. The disaster completely flattened roughly 18,000 houses and damaged countless more. The social activist and
Over the course of former President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) 11-day trip to China that included a meeting with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Xi Jinping (習近平) a surprising number of people commented that the former president was now “irrelevant.” Upon reflection, it became apparent that these comments were coming from pro-Taiwan, pan-green supporters and they were expressing what they hoped was the case, rather than the reality. Ma’s ideology is so pro-China (read: deep blue) and controversial that many in his own Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) hope he retires quickly, or at least refrains from speaking on some subjects. Regardless
Approaching her mid-30s, Xiong Yidan reckons that most of her friends are on to their second or even third babies. But Xiong has more than a dozen. There is Lucky, the street dog from Bangkok who jumped into a taxi with her and never left. There is Sophie and Ben, sibling geese, who honk from morning to night. Boop and Pan, both goats, are romantically involved. Dumpling the hedgehog enjoys a belly rub from time to time. The list goes on. Xiong nurtures her brood from her 8,000 square meter farm in Chiang Dao, a mountainous district in northern Thailand’s