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Taike spokesman MC Hotdog felt right at home at the annual taike music festival in Taichung. PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES

The taike (台客) brigade was out in force at last weekend's TK Rock Concert (2007台客搖滾嘉年華) in Taichung as local popsters, rappers and rockers vied for a piece of grassroots vogue. Despite intermittent showers, a crowd of around 30,000 bopped to Aboriginal diva A-mei (阿妹) who demonstrated a taike square dance (方塊舞), Bobby Chen (陳昇), who wore a boy-scout outfit and The Chairman (董事長樂團) who were accompanied by the divine dancing Eight Generals (八家將).

Hailed as taike ambassadors, foul-mouth rapper duo MC Hotdog and Chang Chen-yue (張震嶽) won rounds of applause with their obscene version of Chairman Chou's (周董) lyrics. Indie outfit Soda Green (蘇打綠) were on top form after having garnered seven nominations for this year's Golden Melody Awards (金曲獎), scheduled to take place next month.

Outside the main stage, poll-dancing girls fired up the dampened taike crowd with their exposed buttocks and tricks that included rubbing their mammalian protuberances on a male audience member's face. Not before long, the slightly X-rated show caught the attention of local police who issued a warning against the indecent public acts. The resourceful girls upped the ante with a three-way wrestling bout. A happy ending for everyone, except, perhaps, taimei feminists, if that's not an oxymoron, and taike gays.

Amy Sun is the Breeze Center's spokeswoman. No surprise, since it is owned by her husband. PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES

Whereas the festival embraced a Taiwanese identity loudly and proudly, local girl outfit S.H.E and their record company HIM (華研唱片) were labeled turncoats by our sister paper Liberty Times (自由時報) as their new song Mandarin (中國話) lavishes praise on the Chinese. The company struck back by denying the paper's reporters access to the band's press conferences.

Top Five Mandarin Albums ( April 27 - May 3) Cyndi Wang (王心凌) and Magic Cyndi with 22.75% of sales Vanness (吳建豪) and V.DUBB with 10.9% of sales Sun Ho (何耀珊) and Embrace (擁抱) with 7.38% of sales Eason Chan (陳奕迅) and Admit It (認了吧) with 5.85% Stefanie Sun (孫燕姿) and Against the Light (逆光) with 3.68%

A media war soon broke out when the Apple Daily (蘋果日報) trumpeted its pro-Mandarin opinions while the Liberty Times circulated an online adaptation of the song called Taiwanese (台灣話).

Nationalism was the last thing on VIP shoppers' minds last Friday at the Breeze Center's (微風廣場) exclusive shop-till-you-drop evening that excludes ordinary members of the public. Thousands of honored clients and their platinum credit cards were invited. Starlets and models strutted through the mall and within six hours, NT$260 million had been spent. How the other half lives.

Chinese-language media have been speculating on the possibility of a rekindled romance between old flames Maggie Cheung (張曼玉) and her rumored former lover Tony Leung (梁朝偉) as the pair was spotted dinning together in Hong Kong last week. Obviously having dinner together, in the eyes of the Chinese-language media can never be an innocent affair. Returning to her hometown to attend a local bank's celebration feast as an honored guest, the star tried to dodge questions about the supposed love square between Leung, Carina Lau (劉嘉玲), Terry Gou (郭台銘) and Leung. She decided to play dumb when asked about the dinner date by reporters.

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