Taiwan’s top supermodel Lin Chi-ling (林志玲) has the media abuzz over a rumored engagement to Scott Qiu (邱士楷), the son of a toilet magnate. The rumor emerged when Lin was spotted at an awards ceremony last month sporting a diamond ring, reports the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper).
Lin’s mother, Wu Tzi-mei (吳慈美), emphatically denied the reports, even though Qiu has made numerous appearances with Lin in public, including a late-evening hot pot date. This isn’t the first time marriage rumors have surfaced for Lin, whose past romances are said to include Chinese billionaire Yang Linchuan (楊林川) and singer Jerry Yan (言承旭).
The public obsession with Cape No. 7 (海角七號) continues, but the attention has backfired slightly for the homegrown box office hit’s lead actor, Van Fan (范逸臣). The Amis pop singer has been slapped with some unwelcome comparisons this week to Hong Kong singer-actor Edison Chen (陳冠希) on Internet discussion boards, reports the Liberty Times. No, Van Fan hasn’t been filming his sexual exploits with fellow celebrities, but has been accused of plagiarism: on a poster promoting one of his upcoming concerts, Van Fan strikes a pose that resembles a past jeans advertisement featuring Chen.
Van Fan’s label, Forward Music (豐華唱片), says any similarities are a complete coincidence, and that the photo on the poster was chosen out of several thousand from a recent shoot. The accusations are unlikely to faze Van Fan, who was once rumored to be a possible replacement for Chen in the upcoming film Jump (跳出去). The film, which is being co-produced by Columbia Pictures and Stephen Chow’s (周星馳) company Star Overseas, axed the Hong Kong actor’s scenes following his “sex photo scandal.” Van Fan’s agent denies any knowledge of a potential role, however, and says the singer is sticking to concerts this month.
Meanwhile, death metal band Chthonic (閃靈) continues to enjoy international attention after its tour of Europe and the US last year. The group says that it is now being courted by record labels in Finland, the US, the UK and Germany to release its upcoming album, Mirror of Retribution, with the highest offer totaling tens of millions of NT dollars. But Taiwan’s renowned headbangers, who have another international tour planned for next year, are not rushing into any deals at the moment, saying that “there are many things to consider.”
Chthonic’s lead singer, Freddy Lim (林昶佐), has chimed in about Guns N’ Roses’ provocatively titled new album, Chinese Democracy, which has been officially banned in China. In an interview with Reuters, Lin said, “I think Guns N’ Roses’ new album shows the true rock spirit of the rock artist, of the rock culture, because we have to speak out loud our beliefs and our faith. If we believe in democracy, we believe in freedom, we should just speak out loud. Guns N’ Roses has made a perfect example.”
And as the belts tighten with the global recession, Pop Stop concludes this week with a look at how a few performers are faring in these challenging times.
William So (蘇永康) might have to think about moving to smaller venues. The Hong Kong pop singer filled about 3,000 seats at the National Taiwan University Sports Center (台大綜合體育館) last week — just over half of the stadium’s capacity.
“Reality” show pop idol Jam Hsiao (蕭敬騰) has no qualms about footing a NT$600,000 dental bill for his brother and sister, says a Liberty Times report, but as for himself? According to Hsiao’s manager, he constantly compares prices for tissues and in shopping for a piano, his first stop was a second-hand shop. On his own dentist visits, the pop crooner travels the extra distance just to save NT$7 in processing fees.
For her show last week at the Taipei Arena (台北小巨蛋), singer and actress Rene Liu (劉若英) spent NT$2 million on six different costumes (which didn’t reveal much more than her shoulders, to the disappointment of the Liberty Times’ concert reviewer). And that figure doesn’t appear to include the five Austin Minis that circled the stadium for one of her songs.
And Jolin Tsai (蔡依林) will still be laughing all the way to the bank. According to the Apple Daily, the pop starlet is reportedly ready to sign a deal with Warner Music that would exceed the value of her previous two-year contract with EMI, which was a cool NT$120 million.
The Taipei Times last week reported that the rising share of seniors in the population is reshaping the nation’s housing markets. According to data from the Ministry of the Interior, about 850,000 residences were occupied by elderly people in the first quarter, including 655,000 that housed only one resident. H&B Realty chief researcher Jessica Hsu (徐佳馨), quoted in the article, said that there is rising demand for elderly-friendly housing, including units with elevators, barrier-free layouts and proximity to healthcare services. Hsu and others cited in the article highlighted the changing family residential dynamics, as children no longer live with parents,
It is jarring how differently Taiwan’s politics is portrayed in the international press compared to the local Chinese-language press. Viewed from abroad, Taiwan is seen as a geopolitical hotspot, or “The Most Dangerous Place on Earth,” as the Economist once blazoned across their cover. Meanwhile, tasked with facing down those existential threats, Taiwan’s leaders are dying their hair pink. These include former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) and Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁), among others. They are demonstrating what big fans they are of South Korean K-pop sensations Blackpink ahead of their concerts this weekend in Kaohsiung.
Taiwan is one of the world’s greatest per-capita consumers of seafood. Whereas the average human is thought to eat around 20kg of seafood per year, each Taiwanese gets through 27kg to 35kg of ocean delicacies annually, depending on which source you find most credible. Given the ubiquity of dishes like oyster omelet (蚵仔煎) and milkfish soup (虱目魚湯), the higher estimate may well be correct. By global standards, let alone local consumption patterns, I’m not much of a seafood fan. It’s not just a matter of taste, although that’s part of it. What I’ve read about the environmental impact of the
Oct 20 to Oct 26 After a day of fighting, the Japanese Army’s Second Division was resting when a curious delegation of two Scotsmen and 19 Taiwanese approached their camp. It was Oct. 20, 1895, and the troops had reached Taiye Village (太爺庄) in today’s Hunei District (湖內), Kaohsiung, just 10km away from their final target of Tainan. Led by Presbyterian missionaries Thomas Barclay and Duncan Ferguson, the group informed the Japanese that resistance leader Liu Yung-fu (劉永福) had fled to China the previous night, leaving his Black Flag Army fighters behind and the city in chaos. On behalf of the
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