Is it just Pop Stop or are Taiwan’s gossip rags replacing genuine rumor and innuendo for breasts, cleavage and nipples?
At an event promoting beef noodles in Taipei this past weekend, paparazzi snapped four women in low-cut tops preparing the delicacy. But the real dish on the menu, according to an Apple Daily report, was the women’s “meat dumplings” (肉圓).
Chastising the four models and the person who paid NT$10,000 for the dish they prepared, the gossip rag said that they should clean up their act because their luscious revelations at the event might unnecessarily raise the blood pressure of the grandmothers and grandfathers who made up most of the crowd. It’s good to know that Apple is giving out moral advice.
In other bust-related news, model Chen Chih-hsing (陳芷欣) revealed at a press conference this past week why her tatas are so large.
“The women in my family all have large breasts because they like to eat a lot. So I didn’t have to work on my D size,” she said after winning a bikini contest. “Before I was an E — something I really hated. But now I’m a comfortable D.”
On the contest itself, Chen was, er, more philosophical. “People told me a lot of negative things about beauty contests,” Chen told the assembled oglers. “So I was really surprised after winning,” thus implying the contest wasn’t fixed.
Netizens thought it odd that Chen would have been considered for the contest because she missed most of the competition’s activities, which would ordinarily disqualify a contestant.
Meanwhile, in a case of the picture leading the “news,” television star Chiang Wei-wen (蔣偉文) was shown at a press conference cupping Wang Yi-ren’s (王怡仁) breasts while pressing his “GG” (雞雞) against the former news anchor’s thigh. Not satisfied, according to Next, with copping a feel and giving a rub, Jiang decided to go for the “buy one get one free” (買一送一), squatted down and placed Wang’s leg onto his knee and then allegedly investigated the contents inside her skirt. As of press time it is unclear whether or not Jiang got a glimpse of any forestry.
In other boob news, the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported that crooner Guang Liang (光良) is embarrassed by his huge nipples — so much so that he has taken to wearing “breast stickers” (胸貼). Guang Liang said he first contemplated covering up at a concert in China (Why China? Do they blush easily?) and called on fellow singer A-mei (張惠妹) for advice. A-mei at first scoffed at the suggestion but quickly changed her mind after a glimpse of the offending paps.
It’s not because of another woman. So said former B.A.D. band member Ben Pai’s (白吉勝) agent after the star’s recent split with actress Jessie Chang (張本渝). This, of course, got noses sniffing. After going through the usual round of rumors of why they broke up — Ben wants to have sex all the time, Chang wants to get married — Next hit on the reason: Ben has his eyes on Japanese starlet Mayi (麻衣).
In a futile attempt to deflect attention, Mayi wrote on her blog that she will “make a big decision in a few weeks.”
The entry was enough to ensure that paparazzi were following Pai when he pulled up in front of a motel a few days later at 1:05am. Minutes later another car pulled up and parked behind Pai and out stepped Yu Hsiao-ping (余筱萍), daughter of Democratic Progressive Party legislator Yu Tian (余天).
Next magazine’s reporters later asked Pai’s agent why the two met up. “So that she could lend him a DVD,” he said, which is agent speak for, “there’s not a chance in hell I’m going to tell you anything.”
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
This year’s Michelin Gourmand Bib sported 16 new entries in the 126-strong Taiwan directory. The fight for the best braised pork rice and the crispiest scallion pancake painstakingly continued, but what stood out in the lineup this year? Pang Taqueria (胖塔可利亞); Taiwan’s first Michelin-recommended Mexican restaurant. Chef Charles Chen (陳治宇) is a self-confessed Americophile, earning his chef whites at a fine-dining Latin-American fusion restaurant. But what makes this Xinyi (信義) spot stand head and shoulders above Taipei’s existing Mexican offerings? The authenticity. The produce. The care. AUTHENTIC EATS In my time on the island, I have caved too many times to
Many Taiwanese have a favorable opinion of Japan, in part because Taiwan’s former colonial master is seen as having contributed a great deal to the development of local industries, transportation networks and institutions of education. Of course, the island’s people were never asked if they wanted to be ruled by Tokyo or participate in its modernization plans. From their arrival in 1895 until at least 1902, the Japanese faced widespread and violent antagonism. Things then calmed down, relatively speaking. Even so, between 1907 and 1916 there were eleven anti-Japanese revolts. A map in the National Museum of Taiwan History (國立臺灣歷史博物館)