The hubbub over Zhang Ziyi’s (章子怡) recent sandy sweethearting has prompted considerable moralizing in China. As Pop Stop reported a few weeks back, Zhang and her Israeli fiance, Aviv “Vivi” Nevo, were caught noshing up the beaches of St Barts, a French territory in the Caribbean. A paparazzo snapped pictures of the Memoirs of Geisha and 2046 star in what one blogger from China described as Zhang’s “unpatriotic behavior,” for exposing herself in public so brazenly.
Song Zude (宋組德) blogged that Zhang did this because she was “only interested in her career and money.” Pop Stop must protest. Starlets only expose themselves when their careers are faltering, not when they are at the pinnacle of the celebrity firmament, as Zhang currently is.
Time passes, however, and it seems that nationalistic zeal has taken a backseat to criticism of Zhang’s body — particularly her “tiny” bust size. Which is hardly surprising, given the tabloids’ obsession with this particular part of a woman’s anatomy. This week’s edition of Next Magazine even published a detailed report on why an ageing model wants to have cosmetic surgery done on her breasts. (It’s because they “droop,” if you must know.)
Meanwhile, yWeekend, the online version of the Beijing Youth Daily, caught up with “Fred,” the mystery man from France behind the Zhang photos, who described for readers what he saw.
“Nevo kept rolling his body back and forth. Then he caressed Zhang Ziyi’s back. He caressed it again and again. His hand then slid further and further down. I could not believe what my eyes were seeing. It was getting too hot. Then they went into the ocean to swim. My guess was that they got too ‘hot’ and they had to cool down by jumping into the ocean.”
So this is what constitutes steamy behavior: a man and a woman who plan to marry caressing each other on a beach. Fred probably would have had a heart attack if he’d snapped last year’s photos of Edison Chen (陳冠希) with his coterie.
And speaking of marriage, Hong Kong director and one of the “Four Heavenly Kings of Canto-pop” Andy Lau (劉德華) said that Taiwanese actress Shu Qi (舒淇) would be worth marrying because she is good to her family, according to reports in Apple and the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper).
His comments at a press conference for the release of his new movie Look for a Star (游龍戲鳳) plus a wedding ring on his ring finger predictably sent the assembled gossip hounds into a frenzy. But Lau burst their bubble when he pointed out that the ring was the property of a certain French fashion house and that he and Shu were just old friends.
In other “Heavenly Kings of Cantopop” news, “God of Songs” (歌神) crooner Jacky Cheung (張學友) ended his one-year hiatus from the music industry with a press conference at Hong Kong Disneyland. He said he’ll release a new album, film a movie and hold a concert within the year, according to a report in the Oriental Daily News. He also lamented the lack of solidarity in the music industry and how he was powerless to remedy the situation.
It looks as though pop singer Wen Lan (溫嵐) has hooked up with another woman’s man — again, according to a report in Next. The saga began in July when Wen sent a flurry of text messages to dancer Lin Chun-che (林群哲), who had been in an 11-year relationship with fellow dancer Chen Hsien-he (陳仙禾). Both dancers have collaborated with Wen, and Chen and the singer had been close friends for years. Fast-forward six months and Lin dumps Chen to be with Wen. Par for the course for Lin, really, because the Casanova has allegedly cheated on Chen a number of times.
And finally, no Lunar New Year would be complete without a celebrity prediction. According to a report on Yahoo, a fortune-teller says that Jolin Tsai’s (蔡依林) career will tank this year and that she will be luckless in love because she devotes too much time to her career.
June 9 to June 15 A photo of two men riding trendy high-wheel Penny-Farthing bicycles past a Qing Dynasty gate aptly captures the essence of Taipei in 1897 — a newly colonized city on the cusp of great change. The Japanese began making significant modifications to the cityscape in 1899, tearing down Qing-era structures, widening boulevards and installing Western-style infrastructure and buildings. The photographer, Minosuke Imamura, only spent a year in Taiwan as a cartographer for the governor-general’s office, but he left behind a treasure trove of 130 images showing life at the onset of Japanese rule, spanning July 1897 to
In an interview posted online by United Daily News (UDN) on May 26, current Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) was asked about Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) replacing him as party chair. Though not yet officially running, by the customs of Taiwan politics, Lu has been signalling she is both running for party chair and to be the party’s 2028 presidential candidate. She told an international media outlet that she was considering a run. She also gave a speech in Keelung on national priorities and foreign affairs. For details, see the May 23 edition of this column,
The Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on May 18 held a rally in Taichung to mark the anniversary of President William Lai’s (賴清德) inauguration on May 20. The title of the rally could be loosely translated to “May 18 recall fraudulent goods” (518退貨ㄌㄨㄚˋ！). Unlike in English, where the terms are the same, “recall” (退貨) in this context refers to product recalls due to damaged, defective or fraudulent merchandise, not the political recalls (罷免) currently dominating the headlines. I attended the rally to determine if the impression was correct that the TPP under party Chairman Huang Kuo-Chang (黃國昌) had little of a
At Computex 2025, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) urged the government to subsidize AI. “All schools in Taiwan must integrate AI into their curricula,” he declared. A few months earlier, he said, “If I were a student today, I’d immediately start using tools like ChatGPT, Gemini Pro and Grok to learn, write and accelerate my thinking.” Huang sees the AI-bullet train leaving the station. And as one of its drivers, he’s worried about youth not getting on board — bad for their careers, and bad for his workforce. As a semiconductor supply-chain powerhouse and AI hub wannabe, Taiwan is seeing
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