After promising to give the stage over to local acts overlooked by other music events, last weekend's Formoz Festival 2007 (野台開唱) did little to promote fresh local talent. Most media coverage focused on the 30 outfits from Japan.
Japanese songstress/model/actress Anna Tsuchiya and hip-hop act Teriyaki Boyz led by NIGO, the founder of high-profile street clothing brand A Bathing Ape, were among the biggest draws. The lead singer of Ginkgo Boyz (銀杏Boyz) stole the show when he stripped off and exposed his trouser snake to the crowd. The overexcited Japanese lad was arrested and fined NT$9,000 for public indecency last Saturday.
Sunday's performances seemed tame in comparison with the exception of Rize's lead singer Jassie from Japan, who put on an acrobatic show on the stage scaffold that earned a big round of applauds.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
What happens when pretty boys Bang Bang Tang (棒棒堂) meets the popular singing contest finalists now known as the Million Star Gang (星光幫)? A full-scale war between the fans on each side.
The raging battle began shortly after the Gang appeared on the Bang Bang Tang boys' variety show on Channel V and the former insulted the latter.
"Bang Bang Tang can neither sing nor dance. The only thing they do well is to sell their faces," the Million-Dollar camp said.
"Yea, but the Million Star Gang doesn't even have faces to sell," the Bang Bang Tang camp retorted.
Pop Stop has to admit that both camps have a point.
Having long since passed into oblivion, Chin Han (秦漢) rose from the dead when his unlikely romance with Hong Kong actress Nancy Sit (薛家燕) made it into gossip columns this week. What's the big deal? The 61-year-old man was the lover of former Mando-movie star Brigitte Lin (林青霞) for 21 years.
At the time, observers predicted Han and Lin would eventually wed. The diva's knot was tied instead by multi-billionaire Xing Li-yuan (邢李源) in 1994, right after her long relationship with Chin ended.
Over a decade later, the well-preserved Chin caught Sit's eye when the pair were appearing together in a Chinese soap opera. Saying her head got dizzy every time she saw Chin, the veteran actress proudly announced that her Prince Charming liked to call her "sunshine" on set and the feeling was mutual.
"He likes younger women. All the girlfriends he has had in the past are below the age of 40," an anonymous friend is quoted as saying in the Chinese-language press.
May 11 to May 18 The original Taichung Railway Station was long thought to have been completely razed. Opening on May 15, 1905, the one-story wooden structure soon outgrew its purpose and was replaced in 1917 by a grandiose, Western-style station. During construction on the third-generation station in 2017, workers discovered the service pit for the original station’s locomotive depot. A year later, a small wooden building on site was determined by historians to be the first stationmaster’s office, built around 1908. With these findings, the Taichung Railway Station Cultural Park now boasts that it has
Wooden houses wedged between concrete, crumbling brick facades with roofs gaping to the sky, and tiled art deco buildings down narrow alleyways: Taichung Central District’s (中區) aging architecture reveals both the allure and reality of the old downtown. From Indigenous settlement to capital under Qing Dynasty rule through to Japanese colonization, Taichung’s Central District holds a long and layered history. The bygone beauty of its streets once earned it the nickname “Little Kyoto.” Since the late eighties, however, the shifting of economic and government centers westward signaled a gradual decline in the area’s evolving fortunes. With the regeneration of the once
The latest Formosa poll released at the end of last month shows confidence in President William Lai (賴清德) plunged 8.1 percent, while satisfaction with the Lai administration fared worse with a drop of 8.5 percent. Those lacking confidence in Lai jumped by 6 percent and dissatisfaction in his administration spiked up 6.7 percent. Confidence in Lai is still strong at 48.6 percent, compared to 43 percent lacking confidence — but this is his worst result overall since he took office. For the first time, dissatisfaction with his administration surpassed satisfaction, 47.3 to 47.1 percent. Though statistically a tie, for most
In February of this year the Taipei Times reported on the visit of Lienchiang County Commissioner Wang Chung-ming (王忠銘) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and a delegation to a lantern festival in Fuzhou’s Mawei District in Fujian Province. “Today, Mawei and Matsu jointly marked the lantern festival,” Wang was quoted as saying, adding that both sides “being of one people,” is a cause for joy. Wang was passing around a common claim of officials of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the PRC’s allies and supporters in Taiwan — KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party — and elsewhere: Taiwan and
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