Local media have dubbed four-piece boy band Fahrenheit (飛輪海) the new F4 after it proved adept at raking in foreign currency from neighboring Asian countries. Reporters calculated that the group’s newly launched Web site (www.fahrenciti.com) successfully netted roughly 3,000 paid memberships in its first five days. Around 500 fans flew in from Japan, Hong Kong, South Korea and Singapore to meet their idols in person at the site’s launch party held at Nangang Sports Center (南港運動中心) last weekend.
Fahrenheit’s band members, who are also known by their temperatures (“cold, cool, warm and hot”), did their part and turned in emotional performances to ensure the get-together was worth the flight. Reportedly moved by the band’s success, Wu Chun (吳尊, 59°F), the sappy one, took the initiative and turned the celebration into a tearjerker by sobbing uncontrollably. Wu’s fellow crooners followed suit, finally reaching a climax that involved a group hug and four blubbering pretty boys.
Having had a taste of sudden media attention following her arrest for smoking marijuana, starlet Pei Lin (裴琳) has found a new way of commanding column inches after being discharged from the jug. The vernacular press is salivating over Pei’s alleged lesbian relationship with makeup artist’s assistant Lo Ya–wen (羅雅文), who was caught smoking pot with the star during a police raid last year.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
Next probed Pei’s queerness by investigating how she spent her time in jail, and uncovered salacious details of the young star slurping up freshly squeezed orange juice and chomping on sticky rice desserts handmade by admirers. Pop Stop is outraged.
Pei denied all the above but said she would have batted for her own team if she had stayed at the women’s prison any longer.
Former beauty pageant winner Yuni Li (李妍瑾) returned to the media’s attention not for her famed “chocolate nipples,” but her budding amour with a guitar player known as Hantan Yeh (寒單爺). Li broke up with Shin (信), of Shin Band (信樂團) last year.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
Members of the press pack wondered whether Li has a predilection for broke rockers. The Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) unleashed its intrepid showbiz reporters on the story, who revealed that the guitarist comes from a well-heeled family and that playing in an underground band is just one of his pastimes.
Li brushed off reports that the rocker spent more than NT$10 million winning her heart and insisted that the strummer is just a typical angry musician who runs amok at bars.
Much to the delight of the Hong Kong paparazzi tailing pop idol Nicholas Tse (謝霆鋒), who is shooting the sequel of Storm Riders (風雲) in Bangkok, Cecilia Cheung (張柏芝) made a surprise visit to the set last week, along with the couple’s baby boy and a troupe of assistants.
After the Edison Chen (陳冠希) sex-photo scandal, the disgraced actress and wife has allegedly resolved on following extreme methods to save her marriage with Tse. From reportedly begging for forgiveness, making suicide threats to attempting to get pregnant again, Cheung is said to be sticking close to her husband and deploying every trick in the book.
According to Liberty Times and Next, Tse was indeed surprised by Cheung’s unannounced visit, though not necessarily in a pleasant way. Photos from the scene show a sullen Tse sitting next to Cheung and their baby in a car.
Even by the standards of Ukraine’s International Legion, which comprises volunteers from over 55 countries, Han has an unusual backstory. Born in Taichung, he grew up in Costa Rica — then one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — where a relative worked for the embassy. After attending an American international high school in San Jose, Costa Rica’s capital, Han — who prefers to use only his given name for OPSEC (operations security) reasons — moved to the US in his teens. He attended Penn State University before returning to Taiwan to work in the semiconductor industry in Kaohsiung, where he
On May 2, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), at a meeting in support of Taipei city councilors at party headquarters, compared President William Lai (賴清德) to Hitler. Chu claimed that unlike any other democracy worldwide in history, no other leader was rooting out opposing parties like Lai and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). That his statements are wildly inaccurate was not the point. It was a rallying cry, not a history lesson. This was intentional to provoke the international diplomatic community into a response, which was promptly provided. Both the German and Israeli offices issued statements on Facebook
May 18 to May 24 Pastor Yang Hsu’s (楊煦) congregation was shocked upon seeing the land he chose to build his orphanage. It was surrounded by mountains on three sides, and the only way to access it was to cross a river by foot. The soil was poor due to runoff, and large rocks strewn across the plot prevented much from growing. In addition, there was no running water or electricity. But it was all Yang could afford. He and his Indigenous Atayal wife Lin Feng-ying (林鳳英) had already been caring for 24 orphans in their home, and they were in
Australia’s ABC last week published a piece on the recall campaign. The article emphasized the divisions in Taiwanese society and blamed the recall for worsening them. It quotes a supporter of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) as saying “I’m 43 years old, born and raised here, and I’ve never seen the country this divided in my entire life.” Apparently, as an adult, she slept through the post-election violence in 2000 and 2004 by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), the veiled coup threats by the military when Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) became president, the 2006 Red Shirt protests against him ginned up by
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