Pop Stop is in denial. We don't like it but have to admit the talent show One Million Star (超級星光大道) is generating levels of tittle-tattle not heard of since Pan Jin-lian (潘金蓮) had an affair with her husband's younger brother, in the 17th-century erotic classic The Golden Lotus (金瓶梅). The weekly program, a pale copy of American Idol (which in turn rips off the British show Pop Idol) introduces reality TV to Taiwan, every Friday night on CTV (中視), channel 10. Experienced TV hostess Momoko Tao (陶子) is in charge of proceedings.
It's a bit like KTV but instead of amateurs warbling behind closed doors at Cashbox, the contestants' get their 15 minutes of fame on national TV. Their performances are judged and the winners make a record and open supermarkets for as long as their stars wax and before they wane completely. Amazingly, 37.4 percent of record sales in the week ending July 12 were from the debut offering of Million Star Gang (星光同學會).
As the example of Aska Yang (楊宗緯) shows, the biggest cheat and crybaby is usually the winner. Yang, who lied about his age and has turned blubbering into an art form, is in the papers and on the newscasts daily. On Sunday, he must have been at home flicking the buttons on his remote because desperate Apple Daily reporters went to laughable lengths in order to file a story on the lachrymose crooner.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
They ended up interviewing the father of another winner, Hsiao Jing-teng (蕭敬騰), while he was taking out the trash. There was a photo of the confused looking gentleman in his underpants and flip-flops and the banal interview went something like this:
"Hey, does your son have a record company contract with gangsters [as Yang is reputed to have]?"
"Some friends and relatives know a few people."
"Which gangland boss?"
(Pained expression) "It's difficult to say. Actually, a lot of well-known agents have been in touch."
"Are they black-hearted?"
"I hope not."
Apple Daily reporters return to their trash cans, from whence they came.
Established stars have quickly learned to play along. The predatory A-mei (張惠妹) took an embarrassed-looking Hsiao under her wing the previous week to record a song and thereby managed to gain some column inches for the release of her latest album. Veteran rockers Mayday (五月天) spent NT$60 million on pyrotechnics for three concerts last weekend at the Taipei Arena. But despite hanging from wires and recreating a battlefield, the band's singer Ah-hsin (阿信) got more coverage for a later interview by agreeing to write songs for Yang.
Finally, genuine gossip from real stars. Wang Lee-hom (王力宏) is not everyone's cup of tea, but the four-time Golden Melody award winner has sold 13 million records. His appearance on Here Comes Kang and Xi (康熙來了) this week was a corker as his rumored affair with Shu Qi (舒淇) was brought up. Obviously the show's producers made the most of this in their promotions. Wang's record company Sony BMG, however, got in a huff and said its sultry singer would not be appearing on the program again. Guess it must be true then. Wang loves Shu.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby