This week’s Next Magazine (壹週刊) is worth its weight in gold — if you’re a feminist or sociologist and want to teach your students about Taiwan’s lurid media.
In a kiss-and-tell with the gossip rag, “Joanna,” the blatherskite ex-girlfriend of model and man-about-town Ethan Ruan (阮經天), went into explicit detail about the couple’s past sex life.
“People say Scorpios are really good in bed,” she gushed. “He’s definitely a Scorpio,” she said, explaining that Ruan was capable of performing for at least 30 minutes a time.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
“He really likes anal sex and though it’s a little painful, I like it too,” she said. If that wasn’t enough to make you choke on your breakfast, Joanna went on to say that though the pair dated for nine months, Ruan never used a condom. When asked why she would allow this to happen, the love-crazed Joanna said, “Because I love Hsiao Tien and I will do anything he wants.”
She went on to describe other common-or-garden sexual acts, albeit in graphic detail.
Pop Stop wonders why Next published such run-of-the-mill tales of hanky-panky. Where’s the kinkiness?
It turns out that Hsiao Tien (小天, Ruan’s pet name, which in Mandarin means Little Heaven and isn’t, rather suspiciously, Big Heaven, 大天) is something of a lothario.
Next’s intrepid reporters caught up with Ruan and aspiring model Tiffany Hsu (許瑋甯) last summer heating up the beaches of Kenting (墾丁) and more recently apartment hunting. According to the report, Ruan had been double-dating Hsu and Joanna for three months before breaking up with the latter.
Ruan is in good company this week as he joins senior Casanova Terry Gou (郭台銘) on the pages of the nation’s tabloids. The Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) chairman was “papped” twice this past weekend with his rumored fiancee Delia Tseng (曾馨瑩).
The first time was at a wedding on Saturday. The following night, they showed up at crooners Donnie and Marie Osborne’s concert. Local paparazzi were on hand to annoy the hell out of Terry and Delia — or at least that’s how it appeared as Gou tried fruitlessly to avoid the cameras. Speculation is rife among celebrity insiders that Tseng is pregnant and has set up shop in Gou’s home.
Meanwhile, funnyman Chen Wei-ming (陳為民) just had the smile wiped off his face after a judge handed him a four-month prison sentence. Chen had taken his ex-girlfriend Hou Ju-chieh (侯如捷) to court, accusing her of applying for a credit card under his name in 2003 when they were dating.
Last year the presiding judge threw the case out of court because the bank employee who issued the card reportedly contacted the TV entertainer before doing so. Hou then set her lawyer on the TV entertainer accusing him of making a false accusation. The judge decided in her favor and now it seems likely that Chen will be yukking it up behind bars.
In other legal news, Taiwan’s Apple Daily (蘋果日報) reported that actress Kelly Lin (林熙蕾) lost her suit against the China Times (中國時報). A year ago the Times reported that Lin had secretly married former F4 boy band member Ken Chu (朱孝天) in the US and showed pictures of her life in America. Lin promptly sued the daily saying the paparazzi had invaded her privacy. Perhaps Lin lost because, as a model, complaining that photographers are taking pictures of her and publishing them seems indefensible.
The two lovebirds returned on Monday evening from Japan and were immediately chased by Taiwan’s energetic press corps. Chu tried to give them the slip — he really should know better — and drove to his assistant’s pad on Heping East Road (和平東路), after dropping off Lin at her Dazhi District apartment. When cornered by reporters and asked about his relationship, the former crooner said the pair were just friends.
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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