The Golden Bell Awards (金鐘獎) handed out yearly laurels to the kings and queens of television on Friday of last week. Bickering and catfights promptly ensued, giving the world a glimpse into the alliances and feuds among the glitterati.
Entertainment host Jacky Wu (吳宗憲) waxed ecstatic when he was named best variety-entertainment show host for Guess Show (我猜我猜我猜猜猜) with co-hostess Aya (阿雅). Awarded the top honor for the very first time during his 20-year career, Wu did five push-ups out of sheer excitement on stage.
Things turned sour, though, when the funnyman was asked on Monday whether he felt intimidated by the comeback of Chang Hsiao-yen (張小燕). Long revered as the godmother of television, Chang’s new family-entertainment show Million Dollar Class (百萬小學堂) hit the airwaves about one month ago.
Not known for his discretion, Wu confidently replied: “Didn’t she withdraw from the leader’s circle already?”
But Wu seemed to have calmed down the next day, since he offered to attend Chang’s show for a special discounted fee as a gesture of reconciliation.
No sooner had shopping channel hostess-turned-star Li Jing (利菁) walked home with her first Golden Bell trophy as the best host in the category of singing entertainment for Super Idol (超級偶像) than the person who presented her the award, Pauline Lan (藍心湄), in a bit of backstage sniping, questioned the coarse-voiced lady’s suitability for hosting a singing contest show.
“I am not a lesser singer than she [Lan] is,” Li said in response to Lan’s criticism, according to the Apple Daily. “I can put together a record album to prove it.”
Pop Stop thinks the transsexual hostess would make better use of her time and public stature by fighting for the rights of her fellow transgenders in Taiwan.
In other gong-related news, the Golden Horse Awards (金馬獎) revealed its nomination list last week. Heartthrob Takeshi Kaneshiro (金城武) was listed as a nominee for the best Taiwanese film worker of the year — for about seven hours. Takeshi isn’t ineligible because he’s a Japanese national.
Also caught in controversy is another nominee of Japanese nationality, Chie Tanaka. Nominated for the best newcomer for her performance in Cape No. 7 (海角七號), Tanaka’s eligibility was questioned because she has already played small roles in such films as Initial D (頭文字D).
Organizers said Tanaka wouldn’t be scratched from the list, but they promised to make the rules clearer next year.
Pop Stop suspects Tanaka is getting preferential treatment because Cape No. 7 beat Hollywood films at the box office and grossed more than NT$450 million.
The movie has also made its director, Wei Te-sheng (魏德聖), a very popular man, but, according to unsourced rumors reported by Apple Daily, journalists have been muttering that Wei’s success has gone to his head. Why? Apparently it’s because he doesn’t always answer his phone when they call him.
Wei responded by saying that he’s still getting to used to going from being a nobody to a somebody in less than two months.
“Once I put aside my phone for five minutes and there were 18 missed calls,” Wu was quoted as saying by the Apple Daily.
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)