Minister of Education Tu Cheng-sheng (杜正勝) seems to have unwittingly educated Hong Kong's glitterati on personal hygiene and public etiquette. The Apple Daily earlier this week published images of Hong Kong diva and actress Coco Chiang (蔣怡) with her finger up her nose having a good rout at a shopping mall.
Pop Stop readers will recall Tu kicked up a stink when he was "caught" picking his nose and sleeping during a legislative session. Government Information Office (GIO) Minister Shieh Jhy-wey (謝志偉) later claimed Tu's nasal fingering was a protest to poor behavior in the legislature. Hmmm.
At least Chiang wasn't sleeping on the job.
In other Hong Kong showbiz news, Maggie Cheung (張曼玉) reportedly can't get enough of European men. The Cannes Film Festival award-winning actress, who was once married to French director Olivier Assayas, spent five days shacked up in a hotel with a German mystery man. Calling their relationship "love at first sight," the actress seems to have moved on from her other failed love affairs.
Meanwhile, at home, before Taiwanese bombshell Lin Chih-ling (林志玲) came along, there was Stephanie Hsiao (蕭薔). Once described as the prettiest "artist" - whatever that means - in Taiwan, Hsiao has struggled to get back on top of the celebrity pedestal, though she still has considerable drawing power for gossip hounds.
A Chinese blog last week showed images of Hsiao being "forced" to drink at a KTV in China. The shots momentarily shattered the philanthropic image that Hisao had cultivated with stunts such as selling 100 autographed pictures of herself to raise money for wigs to give to chemotherapy patients. The model maintained her good-girl image by telling the media that she couldn't have been forced to drink because children were present.
Suzanne Hsiao (蕭淑慎) is back on the celebrity circuit. Well, sort of. Having recently left a rehabilitation center after testing positive last year for ketamine and cocaine, which she claimed originated from augmentation surgery, the singer's attempted comeback - this time on the big screen - isn't making much headway.
Apple reports that Hsiao agreed to star in a movie in which she removed her clothes for a cool NT$800,000. At the time the straight-to-DVD director Wong Jing (王晶) said the shamed starlet's talent could make her Taiwan's next sex queen. Offers for more movies have dried up, however, as the burgeoning actress' bedroom performance has been likened to that of a dead fish (死魚).
As I finally slid into the warm embrace of the hot, clifftop pool, it was a serene moment of reflection. The sound of the river reflected off the cave walls, the white of our camping lights reflected off the dark, shimmering surface of the water, and I reflected on how fortunate I was to be here. After all, the beautiful walk through narrow canyons that had brought us here had been inaccessible for five years — and will be again soon. The day had started at the Huisun Forest Area (惠蓀林場), at the end of Nantou County Route 80, north and east
Specialty sandwiches loaded with the contents of an entire charcuterie board, overflowing with sauces, creams and all manner of creative add-ons, is perhaps one of the biggest global food trends of this year. From London to New York, lines form down the block for mortadella, burrata, pistachio and more stuffed between slices of fresh sourdough, rye or focaccia. To try the trend in Taipei, Munchies Mafia is for sure the spot — could this be the best sandwich in town? Carlos from Spain and Sergio from Mexico opened this spot just seven months ago. The two met working in the
Exceptions to the rule are sometimes revealing. For a brief few years, there was an emerging ideological split between the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) that appeared to be pushing the DPP in a direction that would be considered more liberal, and the KMT more conservative. In the previous column, “The KMT-DPP’s bureaucrat-led developmental state” (Dec. 11, page 12), we examined how Taiwan’s democratic system developed, and how both the two main parties largely accepted a similar consensus on how Taiwan should be run domestically and did not split along the left-right lines more familiar in
A six-episode, behind-the-scenes Disney+ docuseries about Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour and Rian Johnson’s third Knives Out movie, Wake Up Dead Man, are some of the new television, films, music and games headed to a device near you. Also among the streaming offerings worth your time this week: Chip and Joanna Gaines take on a big job revamping a small home in the mountains of Colorado, video gamers can skateboard through hell in Sam Eng’s Skate Story and Rob Reiner gets the band back together for Spinal Tap II: The End Continues. MOVIES ■ Rian Johnson’s third Knives Out movie, Wake Up Dead Man
RSS