This week’s gossip column inches have been dominated by intrigue and secret love in the Mando-pop world. Teen idol and self-made acrobat Jolin Tsai (蔡依林) grabbed headlines, not for her new album Butterfly (花蝴蝶), but for being an alleged cheater and copycat.
The story goes something like this: a couple of years ago, Tsai’s old flame Jay Chou (周杰倫) implied that celebrated music impresario Chen Tse-shan (陳澤杉) had knowingly manipulated the charts for his clients including Tsai. Now, the diva is bent on revenge.
When preorders of Butterfly broke the 120,000-mark, that is 30,000 more than those for Chou’s Capricorn (魔杰座) last year, the songstress’ label Warner Music (華納音樂) wasted no time in holding a press conference on Sunday, where an attorney was
present to validate the veracity of the figures.
According to Chou’s record company, JVR Music (杰威爾音樂), Warner Music fiddled the figures. “You can’t fool those in the business,” the company’s spokesperson was quoted as saying.
Perhaps what troubles the Mando-pop queen most is the recent accusation that she copied Japanese pop sensation Ayumi Hamasaki. Local media have commented on what they believe are striking similarities between the two stars’ new looks.
As Stefanie Sun (孫燕姿) readies to open her tour with a concert at Taipei Arena (台北巨蛋) next month, the Singaporean singer’s sweetheart of two years, a hitherto well-kept secret, has conveniently surfaced and garnered media attention.
Dubbed “mustache man” (鬍鬚男) by media, 31-year-old Nadim van der Ros is Dutch, a high-ranking manager at Aviva, and what’s more, a hunk and able athlete who caught the star’s eye at a triathlon competition held by his company.
Sun’s is not the only secret to see the light of day. Chu Ko Liang (豬哥亮), who went into hiding after running up a huge gambling debt more than a decade ago, has reportedly irked his old showbiz chums who have tried to help.
Claiming to have plenty of job offers lined up for Chu, entertainer-turned-lawmaker Yu Tian (余天) said he was frustrated that the fugitive funnyman remains elusive and difficult to reach.
Kao Ling-feng (高凌風) says he has an influential friend in Malaysia who is willing to fund a film tailor-made for Chu. The former comedian, however, has shown little interest.
“Chu wants someone to pay off his debt [reportedly upwards of NT$200 million] all at once. But that’s not possible,” Kao was quoted
as saying.
Chu should look up to Judy Chiang (江蕙) when it comes to gambling troubles. After her older sister, who managed her assets, gambled away all the money and went on the lam earlier this year, the reigning queen of Taiwanese-language music has quietly started again from scratch by releasing the DVD version of her 2008 concert.
Though her sister lost
all her savings, to the tune of more than NT$100 million, Chiang took the blame herself.
“It is all my fault. I should have paid more attention to my sister,” Chiang told the Liberty Times, the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper.
Taiwan’s renewable shortfall is a problem of execution, not resources. Japan’s long-cycle, joined-up energy planning is the model worth studying — but what Taiwan can borrow is the institutional machinery, not the politics. When Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) used his visit to Taipei last month to warn that the country needs far more electricity, he was naming a constraint its own planners already know well: Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) expects demand from the semiconductor and artificial intelligence (AI) sector alone to exceed 5 gigawatts (GW) by 2030. The harder question is not whether to build more capacity but which
June 15 to June 21 According to legend, a giant from Orchid Island (Lanyu, 蘭嶼) named Si Mangangavang once built a large chinurikuran canoe capable of carrying 16 people. He set sail southward to the Batanes in the Philippines, where he traded with the local Ivatan people. One of the goods they coveted was cowhide, which the Tao people of Orchid Island used to make armor. Through continued trade, the Tao and Ivatan forged close ties, and Si Mangangavang became good friends with a Batanes giant named Si Vakag. This story, collected in a 1998 book by ethnologist Yu Guang-hong (余光弘)
In a projection room, visitors at the Re: Battle City exhibition at Kaohsiung’s Neiwei Arts Center are invited to sit and watch a 20-minute animated movie. Artist Chang Li-ren (張立人) created the movie with dolls he made by molding paper into crude, painted figurines. The dolls interact in a detailed and realistic Taiwanese cityscape. Outside the projection room, visitors can wander around a massive model of the city. A sizeable crowd happily takes pictures of what looks like the best dollhouse in Taiwan: the same props that were used to tell the story of the country’s descent into techno-dictatorship in the movie. The
With all the vitriol and hyperbolic attacks on President William Lai (賴清德), it might be tempting to assume he is a controversial and divisive president. Depending on the poll and the question asked, he is either slightly above water or slightly below, with roughly 45 percent backing him and 45 percent opposed. His predecessors Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) and Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) were — and remain — far more controversial. A curious bipartisan consensus has arisen around Chen; no one wants to talk about him, and everyone across the political spectrum wishes he would shut up and go away. Ma remained
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