Eat your hearts out Wayne Rooney and Coleen McLoughlin — timeless beauty Carina Lau (劉嘉玲) and perennial heartthrob Tony Leung Chiu Wai (梁朝偉) will reportedly tie the knot in a lavish bash after a 19-year romance that has included rumored flings with a cast of celebrity paramours by both parties.
The nuptials, to which 50 close friends and relatives have been invited, will reportedly take place on July 21 at the Four Seasons resort in Bali.
The showbiz media went into overdrive to uncover details of what is expected to be an extravagant affair. In a press conference held to publicize The Battle of Red Cliff (赤壁) in Hong Kong on Monday, Leung deflected questions about the couple’s big day.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
Frustrated, the press took matters into their own hands.
According to unsubstantiated rumors, Lau and Leung will splurge an estimated NT$4 million on flying out and housing wedding guests who include Faye Wong (王菲), Stanley Kwan (關錦鵬) and Wong Kar-wai (王家衛). The Four Seasons is bound to be besieged by paparazzi, and Pop Stop is offering good odds on Lau becoming pregnant within the year.
In other marital news, it looks as though Lau’s former suitor Terry Gou (郭台銘) doesn’t want his past date hogging the limelight. The head of Hon Hai Precision Industry Co (鴻海精密) and his dancer girlfriend Delia Tseng’s (曾馨瑩) wedding is reportedly taking place later this month and has been picked over in minute detail over the past couple of weeks.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
A simple snap shot of Tseng at the airport sparked an in-depth analysis of her jewelry and clothing. Expert fashionistas determined that her sunglasses were Gucci (NT$10,000), her handbag Hermes (NT$190,000) and her ring diamond (NT$77 million). The Apple Daily’s verdict: the real-life “Pretty Woman” is starting to look like Mrs Gou-to-be.
Meanwhile, pop diva A-mei (張惠妹) was caught off guard, looks-wise, while she was practicing Cantonese last week for her performance at the upcoming Golden Melody Awards (金曲獎). A blown-up photo in Apple Daily showed the makeup-less diva sporting a pair of retro glasses with black plastic frame and compared the singer’s look to Mike Myer’s Austin Powers character.
The newspaper charmingly suggested that A-mei didn’t look her best because her boyfriend, basketball player Sam Ho(何守正), 11 years her junior, had worn her out.
But for truly desperate, unsourced rumor-mongering, one has to turn to China’s celebrity newshounds. A dark, obscure snapshot of pop idol Matthew Ming Dao (明道) relaxing by resting his feet on the back of a chair while a nearby female assistant is seen hunched forward was said by Southern Metropolis Weekly to be evidence that the star is a kinky podophiliac who likes nothing better than to have his feet licked.
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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