All over the news this week is the official breakup of One Million Star (超級星光大道) talent show producer Chan Jen-hsiung (詹仁雄) and wife of two years "sexy mom" Vicky Chen (陳孝萱). Back in December 2005, Pop Stop was all over the NT$1.2 million party that the high-profile producer threw for his wife's two-month-old baby Tie Ti (鐵弟). The couple doesn't even seem to be able to agree over the curtains these days, and now the split is official, information from inside the dysfunctional marriage has hit the press big time.
In addition to the usual allegations of flirtatious behavior on Chan's part, Next has also produced "evidence" that he swings both ways. The magazine claims Chan was caught by paparazzi taking male bonding in exciting new directions. Surely this is no more than expected behavior for a mover and shaker in the showbiz firmament.
And despite the big party back in 2005, Chan is reported to have kept his wife short of cash, even as he went about putting together a multi-million NT dollar collection of designer watches, and furnished the house with top-tier Italian furniture. Chan is all set up to be the bad guy, except for suspicions that Chen flirted with bigamy when she switched from former lover (or husband?) Howie Huang (黃文豪) to current ex. All this provides plenty of fodder for the innuendo peddlers and ensures the couple plenty of column inches in days to come.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
While some people can't wait to get out of their matrimonial situation, Big S (大S) just can't wait to jump in. Such is the pressure she is putting on current beau, Vic Chou (周渝民), that he is losing weight and has given the starlet a diamond ring. Now there's a tip from a true master for all the gold-diggers out there.
Speaking of getting rich, Jay Chou (周杰倫) continues, in the most recent Next report, to fend off the competition as the most financially successful artist in Taiwan. He is probably spurred on by the fact that his closest rival, Jolin Tsai (蔡依林), is, reportedly, a former lover, so instead of sharing a home, they simply see who can buy the biggest and most expensive one. Chou has ensured his lead recently after dropping NT$315 million on a new pad.
Keeping up interest in the mammary development of the nation's stars, Tang Wei (湯唯) has, for the moment at least, reversed the bigger is better trend in cup size. After her turn in Ang Lee's Lust, Caution (色戒) and her elevation to superstar sex kitten, she has shown that repressed desire can hit the mark just as surely as simply being big and bouncy. In her most recent venture "The Red Lips File" (紅唇檔案), Ada Pan (潘慧如) has reined in her "exploding tits" (爆奶) in an attempt to see if this will be a substitute for being able to act.
And finally, TV host Tuo Tsung-kang (庹宗康), having only recently recovered from the bad vibe relating to being collared for marijuana use, is now back in the press due to a new romantic attachment with a 23-year-old Chinese-American Kiki that he inadvertently leaked through his MSN. The total inconsequentialness of this news has Pop Stop reeling, but it is good to see that Tuo, on the verge of 40, still appeals to the very young.
Jan. 5 to Jan. 11 Of the more than 3,000km of sugar railway that once criss-crossed central and southern Taiwan, just 16.1km remain in operation today. By the time Dafydd Fell began photographing the network in earnest in 1994, it was already well past its heyday. The system had been significantly cut back, leaving behind abandoned stations, rusting rolling stock and crumbling facilities. This reduction continued during the five years of his documentation, adding urgency to his task. As passenger services had already ceased by then, Fell had to wait for the sugarcane harvest season each year, which typically ran from
It’s a good thing that 2025 is over. Yes, I fully expect we will look back on the year with nostalgia, once we have experienced this year and 2027. Traditionally at New Years much discourse is devoted to discussing what happened the previous year. Let’s have a look at what didn’t happen. Many bad things did not happen. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) did not attack Taiwan. We didn’t have a massive, destructive earthquake or drought. We didn’t have a major human pandemic. No widespread unemployment or other destructive social events. Nothing serious was done about Taiwan’s swelling birth rate catastrophe.
Words of the Year are not just interesting, they are telling. They are language and attitude barometers that measure what a country sees as important. The trending vocabulary around AI last year reveals a stark divergence in what each society notices and responds to the technological shift. For the Anglosphere it’s fatigue. For China it’s ambition. For Taiwan, it’s pragmatic vigilance. In Taiwan’s annual “representative character” vote, “recall” (罷) took the top spot with over 15,000 votes, followed closely by “scam” (詐). While “recall” speaks to the island’s partisan deadlock — a year defined by legislative recall campaigns and a public exhausted
In the 2010s, the Communist Party of China (CCP) began cracking down on Christian churches. Media reports said at the time that various versions of Protestant Christianity were likely the fastest growing religions in the People’s Republic of China (PRC). The crackdown was part of a campaign that in turn was part of a larger movement to bring religion under party control. For the Protestant churches, “the government’s aim has been to force all churches into the state-controlled organization,” according to a 2023 article in Christianity Today. That piece was centered on Wang Yi (王怡), the fiery, charismatic pastor of the
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