Fierce competition in the sagging pop music market and the tabloids' obsession with sex and celebrity have prompted record companies to cook up increasingly elaborate schemes to garner free publicity and place their singers under the showbiz spotlight. The transgression of good taste may now be par for the course.
Last week several tabloids ran the sensational story of Singaporean singer Stephanie Sun (孫燕姿) and personnel from her record label EMI Capitol being held up at gunpoint by local guides while shooting a music video in Cairo, Egypt. Music video director Huang Chung-ping (黃中平) later clarified, however, that there were no guns present during the incident, which was just a slight disagreement over the guides' payment.
The record label changed it's side of the story from "being extorted for NT$1 million" to labeling the brouhaha a "a big misunderstanding" and Sun, currently in Singapore recovering from the ordeal, ameliorated her previous invective against the "the local villains" by lauding Egypt as a beautiful country.
Taiwan's sweetheart Lin Chih-ling (林志玲) has reached 33, an age deemed overripe for marriage by some. Rumors are doing the rounds that "ice cream" Lin has secretly gotten engaged to Scott Qiu (邱士楷), the son of a local wealthy family who made its fortune of some NT$3.5 billions selling toilets.
The star's equally glamorous mom Wu Tzu-mei (吳慈美) last week took the liberty of refuting the news but did make known her preference for Qiu over Lin's other rumored lover Jerry Yan (言承旭).
While Lin puts her love affair, or affairs, on hold and strives to make it in movies in John Woo's (吳宇森) Battle of Red Cliff (赤壁之戰), the news of Tony Leung's (梁朝偉) withdrawal from the film was made public on Monday and immediately generated intense speculation.
The official reason: Leung has made other business commitments and can't be fully commit to the six-month long shoot in China. The other version: Leung asked for too much money and was replaced with Takeshi Kaneshiro (金城武) who was willing to settle for less money.
The story doesn't end there, however, as many in the showbiz firmament believe the 44-year-old heartthrob ditched the project to prevent IT tycoon Terry Gou (郭台銘) getting his hands on his girlfriend Carina Lau (劉嘉玲).
Record company ALFA Music (阿爾發音樂) is about to lose its biggest cash cow as its seven-year long contract with Jay Chou (周杰倫) expires this month. Desperate to keep the gold mine that is estimated to have brought in over NT$1 billion in profits over the past three years, ALFA has warned other big labels that it has first dibs on extending the contract with the king of Mando-pop.
However, on the other side of the town, the soon-to-be-free star has already procured himself a 200-ping luxurious office and looks set to launch his own empire. A troupe of investors including Sony BMG and Hong Kong entertainment tycoon Peter Lam (林建岳) have promised to back the golden boy.
Water management is one of the most powerful forces shaping modern Taiwan’s landscapes and politics. Many of Taiwan’s township and county boundaries are defined by watersheds. The current course of the mighty Jhuoshuei River (濁水溪) was largely established by Japanese embankment building during the 1918-1923 period. Taoyuan is dotted with ponds constructed by settlers from China during the Qing period. Countless local civic actions have been driven by opposition to water projects. Last week something like 2,600mm of rain fell on southern Taiwan in seven days, peaking at over 2,800mm in Duona (多納) in Kaohsiung’s Maolin District (茂林), according to
It’s Aug. 8, Father’s Day in Taiwan. I asked a Chinese chatbot a simple question: “How is Father’s Day celebrated in Taiwan and China?” The answer was as ideological as it was unexpected. The AI said Taiwan is “a region” (地區) and “a province of China” (中國的省份). It then adopted the collective pronoun “we” to praise the holiday in the voice of the “Chinese government,” saying Father’s Day aligns with “core socialist values” of the “Chinese nation.” The chatbot was DeepSeek, the fastest growing app ever to reach 100 million users (in seven days!) and one of the world’s most advanced and
The latest edition of the Japan-Taiwan Fruit Festival took place in Kaohsiung on July 26 and 27. During the weekend, the dockside in front of the iconic Music Center was full of food stalls, and a stage welcomed performers. After the French-themed festival earlier in the summer, this is another example of Kaohsiung’s efforts to make the city more international. The event was originally initiated by the Japan-Taiwan Exchange Association in 2022. The goal was “to commemorate [the association’s] 50th anniversary and further strengthen the longstanding friendship between Japan and Taiwan,” says Kaohsiung Director-General of International Affairs Chang Yen-ching (張硯卿). “The first two editions
It was Christmas Eve 2024 and 19-year-old Chloe Cheung was lying in bed at home in Leeds when she found out the Chinese authorities had put a bounty on her head. As she scrolled through Instagram looking at festive songs, a stream of messages from old school friends started coming into her phone. Look at the news, they told her. Media outlets across east Asia were reporting that Cheung, who had just finished her A-levels, had been declared a threat to national security by officials in Hong Kong. There was an offer of HK$1m (NT$3.81 million) to anyone who could assist
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