Fugitive funnyman Chu Ke Liang (豬哥亮) has come out of hiding and returned to showbiz to pay off the huge gambling debts that caused him to disappear for more than a decade. The 60-year-old entertainer’s first gig is a television commercial for consumer electronics retailer Tsann Kuen Enterprise Co (3C, 燦坤) that began airing this week.
Chu Ke Liang plays five characters in the commercial — including a grandmother and seven-year-old boy — all wearing his trademark “toilet-lid” (馬桶蓋)hairstyle and is reportedly being paid US$60,000 for his efforts. Apple Daily reports that Chu Ke Liang has received offers to do more commercials and appear on or even host a few television shows, and estimates that the comedian’s earnings from these projects could add up to US$840,000. That’s a fraction of the US$8.7 million to US$14 million he reportedly owes.
While Chu Ke Liang is making money, Cecilia Cheung (張柏芝) is spending it. The actress, one of the prime victims of the Edison Chen (陳冠希) sex photo scandal, enjoyed a luxurious, five-day visit to Taipei last week, wining, dining and shopping, and going to amusement parks with her son, Lucas.
Cheung received a warm welcome from her Taiwanese celebrity friends including sister duo Big S (大S) and Little S (小S); Chen Jien-chow (陳建州), better known as Blackie (黑人); and Chen’s girlfriend, singer Fan Fan (范瑋琪). The paparazzi dutifully tailed the gang and provided gossip readers with day-to-day accounts of their itinerary, from one exclusive Japanese restaurant to another, and lavish spending on products made by a certain American shoe company.
“I am crazy about kids and want to have more,” Cheung was quoted as saying in the Apple Daily. “I have no wish to return to the movie business at the moment. My plan is to use Nicholas Tse’s (謝霆鋒) money for a while longer.”
Though Hong Kong’s Cheung isn’t interested in making a comeback anytime soon, 23-year-old singer Hsu Sung (許頌)is getting plenty of attention as Cheung’s doppelganger. She hit the celebrity radar after winning a talent show in China’s Anhui Province and is now being called a shan chai (山寨版) version of Cheung. Shan chai, which translates roughly as “bandit stronghold,” was coined recently to describe fake goods made in China, which rip off a brand’s image like bandits steal from people.
When asked how she felt about missing the chance to meet the real Cheung, Hsu, who was in Taipei to promote her new single this week, said, “It’s a pity. We may enjoy the thrill of seeing each other’s mirror image.”
In other music news, alt-rock star Faith Yang (楊乃文) is scheduled to perform live in concert at Taipei Arena (台北巨蛋) next month, with erstwhile sweetheart Lin Wei-tse (林暐哲) on board as the music director. ABT pop star Jeff Huang (黃立成), another Yang ex, made a video clip that was played at a press conference held last week in which he wished Yang luck.
When the subject of her old flames was brought up at the media event, the conversation between Yang and journos went something like this:
The press: “Can you compare Lin and Huang?”
Yang: “One is my first, the other [is also] an ex. One is thin, the other chubby. One can do a back flip, the other can’t.”
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,
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
It took 12 years and months of standing in the same mountain location for director Liang Chieh-te (梁皆得) to capture a few seconds of footage: Taiwan’s largest resident raptor locking talons with its mate and spinning through the air in a courtship ritual. With only about 1,000 left in the wild and very short flight windows, the mountain hawk-eagle remains among Taiwan’s most elusive birds. The species generally produces only one offspring per year. Using forest cameras, the film crew and research teams document the arduous process the monogamous pairs go through for the chick to hatch and grow up, weathering
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