Ethan Ruan (阮經天) rules the roost of raunchy gossip for the third week in a row. The model/actor has clearly emerged from having his dirty laundry aired in public with his career in better shape than ever.
After reports that he had, for some months, two-timed girlfriend Tiffany Hsu (許瑋甯) with the mysterious “Joanna,” whose claim to fame, as she revealed in Next magazine, was being Ruan’s partner in rambunctious sex sessions, the man-about-town is reportedly trying to put his house in order. That’s according to Next at least, which reports Ruan and Hsu were spotted heading to the British Trade and Cultural Office in downtown Taipei to apply for UK visas so they could escape the media glare and rebuild their relationship.
Ruan’s highly publicized fling with “Joanna” certainly hasn’t dented his pulling power, and on Wednesday he reportedly fulfilled a promise to shoot a nude beach-side scene for To Love You Is My Destiny (命中注定我愛你), which recently scored more than 10 points on the Neilson ratings. Producers of the program had earlier joked that if the show’s popularity went above 10, an episode in which Ruan goes skinny-dipping would be shot.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
The plan ran into a snag, so to speak, as Ruan had recently got his “little bird” caught in his flies.
The prospect of having salt water and sand wash over those tender parts, Next reports, almost put the kibosh on the project.
Girlfriend Hsu, Next reports, put aside her hurt feelings regarding Ruan’s infidelity and nursed her beau back to health.
A report in Yahoo’s NOWnews Web site suggested all this was largely hooey and that the positive coverage of Ruan making nice with Hsu in this week’s edition was no more than an effort by the magazine to make nice with Ruan after last week’s coverage.
What seems fairly certain is that “Joanna” is now out of the picture. As for Ruan’s nude episode, China Times says he made good on the promise and, at an undisclosed location by the sea, shot a scene of To Love You Is My Destiny in the buff. Chen Yu-shan (陳玉珊), director of SetTV (三立戲劇), which broadcasts the soap, was quoted as saying: “We guarantee that he was completely naked, but [in the shot] we left a beautiful place for fantasy (留一點點美麗的遐想空間).”
Ruan must be laughing all the way to the bank as, according to Apple Daily, his endorsement fees have quadrupled, from around NT$20,000 before the revelations broke, to around NT$80,000.
Pop Stop is thankful that the local media’s focus is on the romantic rather than sexual proclivities of that other — and much older — man-about-town, Terry Gou (郭台銘), head of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密). The seemingly never-ending saga of who would end up as the second Mrs Gou, involving a cast of celebrities that includes Carina Lau (劉嘉玲), Rosamund Kwan (關之琳), and supermodel Lin Chi-ling (林志玲), has reached a denouement. It looks as if Taiwan’s senior Casanova has settled for dancer Delia Tseng (曾馨瑩). The nuptials are expected to take place on July 26, and the two lovebirds are currently in the Czech Republic, where they will have their wedding photos taken. Apple speculates that the background to these photos is likely to be the 100-hectare castle estate that Gou bought for his first wife, now deceased, which is located conveniently close to Hon Hai’s European headquarters. The idea does seem a little macabre. Pop Stop also wonders why Delia’s nickname is Doggy (狗狗). But let’s keep that thought in a “beautiful place for fantasy.”
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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