The Apple Daily (蘋果日報) released its list of the top 10 famous, or should we say infamous, celebrities who have kept the paparazzi busy digging up dirt and have guaranteed brisk sales throughout the past year. Pop Stop highlights the top three.
Aska Yang's (楊宗緯) crybaby antics, offstage “love affairs” and remakes of songs by musicians less famous (but arguably more talented) than himself gained him top honors with gossip hounds.
Apple said Yang serves as a symbol of trends in Taiwanese talent shows, demonstrated by a record-breaking viewership of 3.68 million people sitting on their derrieres in front of the boob tube to watch him croon.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
An online poll by Yahoo Taiwan placed Yang above pop veterans Jolin Tsai (蔡依林) and Jay “Chairman” Chou (周杰倫) as the entertainer audiences would most like to see count down the New Year. Expect “talented” pretty boys lying about their age and throwing hissy fits when they don't get what they want from their producers to dominate the airwaves in 2008.
Suzanne Hsiao (蕭淑慎), who is the face of a whole slew of celebrity misfits busted for drug use, came in second. And just in time; Hsiao was convicted this past week of peddling and using a variety of drugs and could face up to nine years in jail, though insiders suspect she won't do more than six months.
Other reported celebrity druggies include alleged puffers Hu Gua (胡瓜), his fiancee Ding Ro-an (丁柔安), starlet Pei Lin (裴琳), “Prince of Nightclubs” Tuo Tsung-kang (庹宗康) and TV host Chu Chung-heng (屈中恆); all came further down the list. Don't be surprised if a Betty Ford franchise opens up here to deal with this ongoing problem.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
Pop Stop, incidentally, must express disappointment with Apple. Usually the newspaper is the master of lists, but failed, as of press time at least, to provide any information of past miscreants who were sentenced to jail time after puffing the wrong bong.
Tony Leung Chiu-wai
(梁朝偉) captured third spot on the list and ushered in a new cinematic era by displaying his testicles for the camera and in the process finding a new way to attract audiences to the theater.
A UK tabloid reported that Shu Qi (舒淇) was getting close to Hugh Grant in a hip London restaurant. According to a report in the Mirror that repeatedly alluded to Shu's work as a porn star, the Taiwanese actress and Grant were sexing it up in a corner over raw fish while John Duigan, a friend of the British actor, groped her thigh. Calling the rumor “disgusting,” Shu says she hasn't been to England in more than five years. Pop Stop nominates Shu as Taiwan's unofficial ambassador to the UN for helping to put the island on the map, even if the rumors turn out to be untrue.
And finally, the Liberty Times, the Taipei Times' sister paper, dropped a minor bombshell when it reported that Stephen Fung (馮德倫) and Karen Mok (莫文蔚) ended their nine-year relationship after it was rumored Fung had been having an affair with a married woman. The shock of the split, however, paled in comparison to the news that the breakup occurred in January. Again, Pop Stop is disappointed that the paparazzi were almost a year late in revealing this “scoop.”
The Taipei Times last week reported that the rising share of seniors in the population is reshaping the nation’s housing markets. According to data from the Ministry of the Interior, about 850,000 residences were occupied by elderly people in the first quarter, including 655,000 that housed only one resident. H&B Realty chief researcher Jessica Hsu (徐佳馨), quoted in the article, said that there is rising demand for elderly-friendly housing, including units with elevators, barrier-free layouts and proximity to healthcare services. Hsu and others cited in the article highlighted the changing family residential dynamics, as children no longer live with parents,
It is jarring how differently Taiwan’s politics is portrayed in the international press compared to the local Chinese-language press. Viewed from abroad, Taiwan is seen as a geopolitical hotspot, or “The Most Dangerous Place on Earth,” as the Economist once blazoned across their cover. Meanwhile, tasked with facing down those existential threats, Taiwan’s leaders are dying their hair pink. These include former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) and Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁), among others. They are demonstrating what big fans they are of South Korean K-pop sensations Blackpink ahead of their concerts this weekend in Kaohsiung.
Taiwan is one of the world’s greatest per-capita consumers of seafood. Whereas the average human is thought to eat around 20kg of seafood per year, each Taiwanese gets through 27kg to 35kg of ocean delicacies annually, depending on which source you find most credible. Given the ubiquity of dishes like oyster omelet (蚵仔煎) and milkfish soup (虱目魚湯), the higher estimate may well be correct. By global standards, let alone local consumption patterns, I’m not much of a seafood fan. It’s not just a matter of taste, although that’s part of it. What I’ve read about the environmental impact of the
Oct 20 to Oct 26 After a day of fighting, the Japanese Army’s Second Division was resting when a curious delegation of two Scotsmen and 19 Taiwanese approached their camp. It was Oct. 20, 1895, and the troops had reached Taiye Village (太爺庄) in today’s Hunei District (湖內), Kaohsiung, just 10km away from their final target of Tainan. Led by Presbyterian missionaries Thomas Barclay and Duncan Ferguson, the group informed the Japanese that resistance leader Liu Yung-fu (劉永福) had fled to China the previous night, leaving his Black Flag Army fighters behind and the city in chaos. On behalf of the
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