It’s been how many months since Edison Chen’s (陳冠希) said he would leave the Hong Kong entertainment industry forever? That was in February, and there are already rumors that he is angling for a ticket back. According to a report on Sina.com (新浪網), director Andrew Lau (劉偉強)of Infernal Affairs (無間道) fame might be prevailed upon to give the lad a helping hand. The two developed a friendship during the making of Lau’s groundbreaking trilogy. Interest in Chen spiked slightly after he appeared in the Batman blockbuster The Dark Knight, albeit for just two seconds, but do we really want him back so soon? Watch this space.
Taiwan’s favorite supermodel Lin Chi-ling (林志玲) showed her quality on Wednesday when attending Catwalk’s (凱渥) 2nd Star of Your Dreams (第二屆凱渥夢幻之星) modeling competition. (Catwalk is Taiwan’s most influential modeling agency.) And Apple Daily showed its quality yesterday by using the lead paragraph of its story on this event to note that Lin sports a cup size of 34C and that she was wearing a NT$9,810,000 necklace. Loosely translated, the headline yesterday read “Massive tits overawe aspiring models.” You can always be sure Apple Daily will give you the key points at a glace.
But back on the subject of Lin, she has shown that she can take the rough with the smooth. News that her gig as the host of CCTV’s Mid-Autumn Festival variety show had been nixed broke earlier this week, but local media angling for a big response were disappointed. Speculation abounds that this last-minute casting change is the result of Lin’s father expressing himself rather too freely in support of former president Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁). Lin played it cool, taking the responsibility onto herself, saying that she had been too busy to prepare for the task sufficiently well, and that she hoped that in future she’d have another chance to host the program. End of story. Then again, perhaps she was simply embodying the philosophy with which she encouraged the competition’s participants: “The job of a model is to make everybody happy,” she said in her speech to the competitors. Kate Moss and Naomi Campbell may beg to differ.
The skies above Taiwan may not be safe for very much longer. Variety host Zhang Fei (張菲) has taken up flying. He has just spent NT$5 million on purchasing a light aircraft of his own, but has been practicing using a friend’s. Having clocked up a grand total of 25 hours of flying time, he has told the media that he now aims to start a flying school. And Pop Stop thought the streets of Taipei were dangerous. According to the Apple Daily, he has already been in touch with the Civil Aeronautics Administration to establish better regulations for recreational flying in Taiwan.
When asked why he had taken up flying, the debonair show host quipped: “It’s the only way to keep above Taiwan’s plummeting share market.”
In the March 9 edition of the Taipei Times a piece by Ninon Godefroy ran with the headine “The quiet, gentle rhythm of Taiwan.” It started with the line “Taiwan is a small, humble place. There is no Eiffel Tower, no pyramids — no singular attraction that draws the world’s attention.” I laughed out loud at that. This was out of no disrespect for the author or the piece, which made some interesting analogies and good points about how both Din Tai Fung’s and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) meticulous attention to detail and quality are not quite up to
April 28 to May 4 During the Japanese colonial era, a city’s “first” high school typically served Japanese students, while Taiwanese attended the “second” high school. Only in Taichung was this reversed. That’s because when Taichung First High School opened its doors on May 1, 1915 to serve Taiwanese students who were previously barred from secondary education, it was the only high school in town. Former principal Hideo Azukisawa threatened to quit when the government in 1922 attempted to transfer the “first” designation to a new local high school for Japanese students, leading to this unusual situation. Prior to the Taichung First
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) hatched a bold plan to charge forward and seize the initiative when he held a protest in front of the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office. Though risky, because illegal, its success would help tackle at least six problems facing both himself and the KMT. What he did not see coming was Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (將萬安) tripping him up out of the gate. In spite of Chu being the most consequential and successful KMT chairman since the early 2010s — arguably saving the party from financial ruin and restoring its electoral viability —
The Ministry of Education last month proposed a nationwide ban on mobile devices in schools, aiming to curb concerns over student phone addiction. Under the revised regulation, which will take effect in August, teachers and schools will be required to collect mobile devices — including phones, laptops and wearables devices — for safekeeping during school hours, unless they are being used for educational purposes. For Chang Fong-ching (張鳳琴), the ban will have a positive impact. “It’s a good move,” says the professor in the department of
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