While the New Year might mean new beginnings for many of us, this is certainly not the case for Cecilia Cheung (張柏芝), who seems to have won a Pyrrhic victory in saving her marriage to Nicholas Tse (謝霆鋒) following her star turn in the Edison Chen (陳冠希) sex photo scandal. The engagement, understandably perhaps, almost came undone after pictures of Cheung, among others, were posted on the Internet performing various sex acts with the aforementioned Chen.
She managed to salvage the relationship, but according to Next Magazine, the price extracted by Tse’s family for her transgression has been a high one. The magazine reports that her contact with her mother, with whom she had previously been very close, has been heavily curtailed, nor is she allowed to provide any financial support to her own family. This is purportedly at the insistence of Tse’s mother, who clearly has some trust issues to resolve in relation with her daughter-in-law. Cheung, who back in 2003 was regarded as one of the most desirable women in the Chinese-language entertainment industry, might have been better advised to cut her losses and find herself more tolerant in-laws.
While some go down, others come up, and Joe Chen (陳喬恩), one of the stars of the hit TV soap opera To Love You Is My Destiny (命中注定我愛你), has successfully scaled the slippery slopes of the lingerie industry and has been recognizing as having a pair of the most valuable jugs in the country — she has just signed a NT$5 million deal to use her G-cup prowess as an endorsement for Ladies (蕾黛絲) lingerie. These are the big guns that aim to displace Modern Girl (曼登瑪朵), a rival lingerie label whose spokesperson Bianca Pai (白歆惠), who as luck would have it, also stars in To Love You Is My Destiny as Chen’s rival for the love of super stud Ethan Ruan (阮經天). While Chen may have some way to go before displacing the established position of Pai, she is clearly a rising star, who at 29, according to calculations made by Next Magazine, is already pulling in an annual income of NT$30 million.
While Chen is clearly looking forward to a happy New Year, Hu Ying-chen (胡盈禎), entertainer Hu Gua’s (胡瓜) daughter, does not seem to be having much luck reining in wayward husband Lee Chin-liang (李晉良). The recent birth of a little girl has done little to curb Lee’s appetite for sweet young things, and as his father-in-law has just recently set the plastic surgeon up in his own clinic, his opportunities for checking out the action have skyrocketed. Next claims to prove that Lee and Yang Chiao-ning (楊巧寧), former girlfriend of singer Kan Kan (康康), spent three hours in Yang’s penthouse apartment with the lights out on Dec. 26. At least the poor schmuck waiting outside taking the photos didn’t have to do it in the rain. Hu is hanging tough and standing by her man, but watch this space.
In other celebrity troubles, ex-LA Boy Jeff Huang (黃立成), who is now managing a number of artists, found himself the subject of retribution for a fracas in July between artists associated with his Machi (麻吉) group and proteges of Chang Chen-yue (張震嶽). Walking out of Luxy on Christmas morning after showing support for brother Stanley Huang (黃立行), who performed there on Christmas Eve, Chang was set upon by thugs, purportedly of the Bamboo Union Gang (竹聯幫). He did not sustain any serious injuries, nor did he report the incident to the police, taking the attitude that shit happens. For an agent who is known for looking after his people, his cool is likely to go down well.
— Ian Bartholomew
Wooden houses wedged between concrete, crumbling brick facades with roofs gaping to the sky, and tiled art deco buildings down narrow alleyways: Taichung Central District’s (中區) aging architecture reveals both the allure and reality of the old downtown. From Indigenous settlement to capital under Qing Dynasty rule through to Japanese colonization, Taichung’s Central District holds a long and layered history. The bygone beauty of its streets once earned it the nickname “Little Kyoto.” Since the late eighties, however, the shifting of economic and government centers westward signaled a gradual decline in the area’s evolving fortunes. With the regeneration of the once
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On May 2, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫), at a meeting in support of Taipei city councilors at party headquarters, compared President William Lai (賴清德) to Hitler. Chu claimed that unlike any other democracy worldwide in history, no other leader was rooting out opposing parties like Lai and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP). That his statements are wildly inaccurate was not the point. It was a rallying cry, not a history lesson. This was intentional to provoke the international diplomatic community into a response, which was promptly provided. Both the German and Israeli offices issued statements on Facebook
Perched on Thailand’s border with Myanmar, Arunothai is a dusty crossroads town, a nowheresville that could be the setting of some Southeast Asian spaghetti Western. Its main street is the final, dead-end section of the two-lane highway from Chiang Mai, Thailand’s second largest city 120kms south, and the heart of the kingdom’s mountainous north. At the town boundary, a Chinese-style arch capped with dragons also bears Thai script declaring fealty to Bangkok’s royal family: “Long live the King!” Further on, Chinese lanterns line the main street, and on the hillsides, courtyard homes sit among warrens of narrow, winding alleyways and
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