This week's gossip rags are filled with love, lust and sex. Leading the news is the reunion of Carina Lau (劉嘉玲) and Tony Leung (梁朝偉) as the pair attended the 26th Hong Kong Film Awards on Sunday and made a public display of their mutual affection. To the untrained eye, holding hands may seem a trifling matter, but the move was interpreted by the Chinese-language press as a public announcement that the biggest crisis in the couple's 18-year relationship had been resolved.
Unless Taiwan tycoon Terry Gou (郭台銘) learns from the setback and stops courting stars in front of the media's glare, tabloid readers should expect to see more starlets linked to Gou sometime soon.
After Chairman Chou's (周董) fling with Hebe of the girl outfit S.H.E, local paparazzi have been foraging about to discover the Mando-pop king's new sweetheart. Chou was spotted taking 19-year-old TV commercial model Chiang Yu-chen (江語晨) on a classic date routine last Friday.
First it was a romantic dinner at a fine restaurant followed by a testosterone-fuelled display at a basketball court. After the game, Chou lost his paparazzi tail.
When questioned on the nature of their relationship, Chou and Chiang's agents reeled out the standard response, "they are just friends," which in showbiz terminology translates as "ya, they are getting it on."
On a cynical note, the 19-year-old could be garnering free publicity before shifting career and taking a crack at the fiercely competitive Mando-pop music scene. Coincidence? Maybe.
Nine months after their late-night rendezvous in a Yangmingshan (陽明山) parking lot, top model Shatina Chen (陳思璇) and married TV host and record company executive Bao Xiao-bo (包小柏) have been, reportedly, at it again. But this time, the pair retreated to a comfy shelter for their rumored affair: Bao's luxury flat in Neihu (內湖).
The official line is the two were playing mahjong, which is slightly more believable than last year's, which was studying a script together in the pitch-black parking lot. Bao's wife is currently in Canada, and as the saying goes: when the cat's away, the mice will play.
Just when things seemed like they couldn't get any worse for TV host Hu Gua (胡瓜) and his family who are embroiled in drug busts and fraud charges, Taiwanese/Japanese porn star Hinano Miduki (觀月雛乃) publicly accused the fiance of Hu's daughter, Li Chin-liang (李晉良), on a TV variety show last week, of molesting her for the past two years.
The entertainer, however, failed to explain why she was spotted holding hands with her alleged molester last June, several months after the first incident is alleged to have occurred.
Who to believe? On one side is an infamous playboy reputed to have it away with any woman he can lay his mucky paws on and on the other is a publicity whore in the ilk of Hsu Chun-mei (許純美).
A few weeks ago I found myself at a Family Mart talking with the morning shift worker there, who has become my coffee guy. Both of us were in a funk over the “unseasonable” warm weather, a state of mind known as “solastalgia” — distress produced by environmental change. In fact, the weather was not that out of the ordinary in boiling Central Taiwan, and likely cooler than the temperatures we will experience in the near-future. According to the Taiwan Adaptation Platform, between 1957 and 2006, summer lengthened by 27.8 days, while winter shrunk by 29.7 days. Winter is not
A sultry sea mist blankets New Taipei City as I pedal from Tamsui District (淡水) up the coast. This might not be ideal beach weather but it’s fine weather for riding –– the cloud cover sheltering arms and legs from the scourge of the subtropical sun. The dedicated bikeway that connects downtown Taipei with the west coast of New Taipei City ends just past Fisherman’s Wharf (漁人碼頭) so I’m not the only cyclist jostling for space among the SUVs and scooters on National Highway No. 2. Many Lycra-clad enthusiasts are racing north on stealthy Giants and Meridas, rounding “the crown coast”
March 25 to March 31 A 56-year-old Wu Li Yu-ke (吳李玉哥) was straightening out her artist son’s piles of drawings when she inadvertently flipped one over, revealing the blank backside of the paper. Absent-mindedly, she picked up a pencil and recalled how she used to sketch embroidery designs for her clothing business. Without clients and budget or labor constraints to worry about, Wu Li drew freely whatever image came to her mind. With much more free time now that her son had found a job, she found herself missing her home village in China, where she
In recent years, Slovakia has been seen as a highly democratic and Western-oriented Central European country. This image was reinforced by the election of the country’s first female president in 2019, efforts to provide extensive assistance to Ukraine and the strengthening of relations with Taiwan, all of which strengthened Slovakia’s position within the European Union. However, the latest developments in the country suggest that the situation is changing rapidly. As such, the presidential elections to be held on March 23 will be an indicator of whether Slovakia remains in the Western sphere of influence or moves eastward, notably towards Russia and