While Jay Chou (周杰倫) basked in the music industry limelight with a batch of nominations and gongs at the 19th Golden Melody Awards (第十 九屆金曲獎) on Saturday, his former girlfriend and rival, Jolin Tsai (蔡依林), has hit the skids.
She failed to receive one nomination in any major award category, despite the critical success of her Special Agent J (特務J) album, which was released in September of last year, and she was the subject of an all points bulletin issued by the fashion police for turning up to the awards ceremony in a NT$200,000 dress by Giambattista Valli, in which, according to Chen Wan-ruo (陳婉若), the former general manager of the Eelin (伊林) modeling agency, she looked like a barbeque-ready squid on a stick.
Worse still, her new album, Etude of Love (愛的練習曲), which was scheduled for a February release, is being held up by EMI for reasons unknown, and this has cost her, according to Next Magazine (壹周刊), an estimated NT$20 million in lost earnings.
The diva’s romantic life lies in tatters, after her mother and former beau Eddie Peng’s (彭于晏) manager put the kibosh on the pair’s blossoming relationship.
But, despite past bad blood, it looks as though Tsai is finding moral support from old boyfriend Chou, who is encouraging her to follow his example and start her own production company. The pair got into some tit-for-tat sniping over the sales figures for Special Agent J late last year, with Chou claiming they had been inflated, and that his own album, On the Run (我很忙), released at the same time, had really outsold Tsai’s.
Tsai’s good friend Little S (小S) is having no trouble getting satisfaction, or so it seems from reports received from sources, who revealed to Next Magazine that the mom-of-two and TV show hostess is a frequent visitor to her neighborhood sex shop.
She strongly recommends the Ribbed Bullet, to many of her friends, reportedly, although she has yet, as far as Pop Stop is aware, failed to, publicly, er, plug the product on her show. The device, according to the packaging, makes use of “HS III” technology that “allows you to choose vibration speeds and thrilling motions to create pure ecstasy.” This is probably not something that Peng could do, even on a good day, so Pop Stop would advise Tsai to follow her friend’s advice, although in the interests of full disclosure, Pop Stop cannot vouch for the product’s claims.
While Tsai may be fretting over the millions of dollars she is losing because of EMI’s prevarication, Chang Yun-ching (張芸京), the winner of SetTV’s talent show Super Idol (超級偶像) is pulling her hair out over the cash that has reportedly been skimmed off her income by her agents, which has left her without enough even to pay the rent on her NT$5,000-a-month room.
Next Magazine reports she has yet to receive her prize money, and her agents are netting 60 percent of all her other earnings, leaving the former graphic designer with little more take-home pay than she had received from her office job. For all the smiles, it’s a tough world out there in showbiz land, and wannabe celebrities need to hone their survival skills to make it through the snake pit of corporate interests behind the cameras, just as they need to impress the judges in front of them.
Cheng Ching-hsiang (鄭青祥) turned a small triangle of concrete jammed between two old shops into a cool little bar called 9dimension. In front of the shop, a steampunk-like structure was welded by himself to serve as a booth where he prepares cocktails. “Yancheng used to be just old people,” he says, “but now young people are coming and creating the New Yancheng.” Around the corner, Yu Hsiu-jao (饒毓琇), opened Tiny Cafe. True to its name, it is the size of a cupboard and serves cold-brewed coffee. “Small shops are so special and have personality,” she says, “people come to Yancheng to find such treasures.” She
In July of 1995, a group of local DJs began posting an event flyer around Taipei. It was cheaply photocopied and nearly all in English, with a hand-drawn map on the back and, on the front, a big red hand print alongside one prominent line of text, “Finally… THE PARTY.” The map led to a remote floodplain in Taipei County (now New Taipei City) just across the Tamsui River from Taipei. The organizers got permission from no one. They just drove up in a blue Taiwanese pickup truck, set up a generator, two speakers, two turntables and a mixer. They
Former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu’s (洪秀柱) attendance at the Chinese Communist Party’s (CPP) “Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War” parade in Beijing is infuriating, embarrassing and insulting to nearly everyone in Taiwan, and Taiwan’s friends and allies. She is also ripping off bandages and pouring salt into old wounds. In the process she managed to tie both the KMT and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) into uncomfortable knots. The KMT continues to honor their heroic fighters, who defended China against the invading Japanese Empire, which inflicted unimaginable horrors on the
Hannah Liao (廖宸萱) recalls the harassment she experienced on dating apps, an experience that left her frightened and disgusted. “I’ve tried some voice-based dating apps,” the 30-year-old says. “Right away, some guys would say things like, ‘Wanna talk dirty?’ or ‘Wanna suck my d**k?’” she says. Liao’s story is not unique. Ministry of Health and Welfare statistics show a more than 50 percent rise in sexual assault cases related to online encounters over the past five years. In 2023 alone, women comprised 7,698 of the 9,413 reported victims. Faced with a dating landscape that can feel more predatory than promising, many in
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