IS Spring Scream (春天吶喊) on steroids? The Kenting (墾丁) festival keeps getting bigger. The number of parties, bands and fans increases annually. As does the number of people caught for illegal possession of drugs. This year it was a record high of 120 people. Coincidence? Pop Stop thinks not and suggests if it wasn't for the large amount of recreational medicines available fewer people would be interested in the event. They would not be attracted by the yearly media blitz promising sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll and stop going. Eventually, fewer artists would turn up and the festival would become what it originally started out as: a small, underground music event on the beach with a few spliffs being handed round.
Taiwan's brightest stars are playing musical chairs. Jay Chou (周杰倫) has cut ties with the company that backed him eight years ago to become the top-selling Mando-pop artist he is today. The Chairman (周董) has dropped Alfa Music Company and is now chair of his own board. JVR Music has just one client so far, Chou. But since he's a one-man mini industry — with music publishing, performing, advertising and directing credits to his name — making money shouldn't be a problem in the near term. Beijing Morning Post reported that Alfa wasn't happy about the deal and may withdraw the singer's songs from its KTV venues, Holiday and Cash Box. Pop Stop is thinking, "Who will this hurt most?"
Meanwhile, A-mei (張惠妹) is going to be making even more money after signing with EMI for a reported NT$150 million. The ceremony was to take place in Hong Kong on April 12 but the company consulted a fortune-teller and it was rescheduled for Monday, since "this was more auspicious and will make her irresistible to the opposite sex," according to Apple Daily. As if looking good, sounding like an angel and banking millions wasn't enough.
Congratulations to TV personality Little S (小S) who is pregnant again. She has just released a single with co-host Kevin Tsai (蔡康永) called How Come You Did It Again? (妳怎麼又來了). Naturally enough, it's a song about being pregnant and all the little things that happen when you're up the duff ... like water retention, bad moods, cravings and skin problems. Good taste prevailed, however, when the duo decided to make the CD a limited release of 200 copies, for friends and relatives only.
Finally, Lin Chi-ling (林志玲) "does not suit the mainland person's appetite," according to a report in the Apple Daily that said the Chinese were unfavorably comparing her royal Taiwanese highness to "Queen of the Catwalk" Shatina Chen (陳思璇). Known as the "Galloping Antelope" at school on account of her long legs, Chen matured into Taiwan's top-earning fashion icon before being eclipsed by Lin's recent run of form in the modeling stakes. For the horse fanciers out there, the 32-year-olds weigh the same, while Lin has bigger breasts and Chen has longer legs.
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
Relations between Taiwan and the Czech Republic have flourished in recent years. However, not everyone is pleased about the growing friendship between the two countries. Last month, an incident involving a Chinese diplomat tailing the car of vice president-elect Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) in Prague, drew public attention to the People’s Republic of China’s (PRC) operations to undermine Taiwan overseas. The trip was not Hsiao’s first visit to the Central European country. It was meant to be low-key, a chance to meet with local academics and politicians, until her police escort noticed a car was tailing her through the Czech capital. The
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