Taiwan’s paparazzi outdid themselves this week by portraying actress Annie Yi (伊能靜) as a partying harlot who doesn’t want anything to do with her husband, Harlem Yu (庾澄慶), and their son, Harry (哈利), after the Liberty Times (自由時報) (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) and Next Magazine (壹週刊) published photos of the singer and movie star walking hand-in-hand with fellow Taiwanese actor Laurence Huang (黃維德).
Rumors of the former soap stars’ affair have been doing the rounds for a while, even before they both moved to Beijing to pursue acting careers in China. Reports claim that the two once lived in the same apartment building and currently have flats in the same complex.
The incriminating snaps, which clearly show the two holding hands while crossing a Beijing street, seem to put the matter to bed, as it were. When asked for comment, Yu denied that he and his wife were separating.
The images, incidentally, eclipse earlier rumors that Yi was involved with Liu Tao (劉韜), the former owner of a talent agency, which emerged when the pair were photographed eating dinner together and singing at a KTV. Liu’s associates promptly stopped tongues wagging by revealing he bats for the other team.
With so much rumor and innuendo surrounding Yi, perhaps Yu should have listened to his mother, who reportedly advised him against marrying the actress.
Yu’s mother — who, in the picture published in Next, bears a striking resemblance to North Korean dictator Kim Jong-il — has also complained that she is now the primary female caregiver for Harry.
Fortunetellers couldn’t help but weigh in on the whole affair. After studying Huang’s nose, the geomancers determined that he must be good in bed. That’s right, in Taiwan its not big hands or big feet, but a sharp nose that reveals sexual prowess.
The subtext of the whole “scandal,” it seems to Pop Stop’s feminist take, is this: Men, you may leave your family back in Taiwan and have a second wife (or girlfriend) and live it up in China, but Yi is blazing new ground and proving that what’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander.
Although nothing compared to Vivi Wang’s (王婉霏) infamous “black forest incident” or Liu Zhen’s (劉真) nipple slip, punters got more than their fare share of skin this week when Shatina Chen (陳思璇) showed off a considerable amount of her leggy assets. The former “queen of the catwalk” had been laying low since she was caught last year in a late-night rendezvous with a married man on Yanmingshan. She returned to the spotlight this week in high style after performing a sexy number at a press conference during which she wore a skimpy black skirt that provided a clear view of her white knickers. Is there nothing models won’t expose for a little exposure?
If gossip rags are to be believed, Chen’s long legs were alluring enough to enrapture David Tao (陶吉吉), who sweated through her performance and drooled over her afterwards — an amazing feat, really, because Tao is notorious for pursuing sweet young thangs.
Yesterday’s United Evening News reported the suicide of Ivy Li (黎礎寧), runner-up in the talent show One Million Star’s (超級星光大道) third series.
Li reportedly took her own life by burning charcoal in her car in Taichung City.
Taiwan’s overtaking of South Korea in GDP per capita is not a temporary anomaly, but the result of deeper structural problems in the South Korean economy says Chang Young-chul, the former CEO of Korea Asset Management Corp. Chang says that while it reflects Taiwan’s own gains, it also highlights weakening growth momentum in South Korea. As design and foundry capabilities become more important in the AI era, Seoul risks losing competitiveness if it relies too heavily on memory chips. IMF forecasts showing Taiwan widening its lead over South Korea have fueled debate in Seoul over memory chip dependence, industrial policy and
“China wants to unify with Taiwan at the lowest possible cost, and it currently believes that unification will become easier and less costly as time passes,” wrote Amanda Hsiao (蕭嫣然) and Bonnie Glaser in Foreign Affairs (“Why China Waits”) this month, describing how the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is playing the long game in its quest to seize Taiwan. This has been a favorite claim of many writers over the years, easy to argue because it is so trite. Very obviously, if the PRC isn’t attacking Taiwan, it is waiting. But for what? Hsiao and Glaser’s main point is trivial,
May 18 to May 24 Gathered on Yangtou Mountain (羊頭山) on Dec. 5, 1972, Taiwan’s hiking enthusiasts formally declared the formation of the “100 Peaks Club” (百岳俱樂部) and unveiled the final list of mountains. Famed mountaineer Lin Wen-an (林文安) led this effort for the Chinese Alpine Association (中華山岳協會). Working with other experienced climbers, he chose 100 peaks above 10,000 feet (3,048m) that featured triangulation points and varied in difficulty and character. The list sparked an alpine hiking craze, inspiring many to take up mountaineering and competing to “conquer” the summits. A common misconception is that the 100 Peaks represent Taiwan’s 100 tallest
And so, in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s trip to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), all the experts on the Strait of Hormuz suddenly became experts on US-China-Taiwan relations. The Internet has certainly expanded human knowledge. Lots of these sudden experts made noise this week about Trump’s words after the meeting with PRC dictator Xi Jin-ping (習近平). Trump is going to sell out Taiwan! Longtime Taiwan commentator J. Michael Cole summed the situation up neatly in the Guardian: “We need to keep in mind that he has a tendency to say many things — sometimes contradicting himself within
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