Actress and model Shu Qi (舒淇) says she wouldn’t mind tying the knot, but she can do without kids.
In an interview on CTS (華視), the “Golden Horse Empress” said she’s been receiving a “lot of matchmaking help” and that “marriage doesn’t look too bad nowadays.”
A few tips for prospective husbands: Shu hopes her hubby would agree to her continuing to make films, and having children isn’t high on her list, as she would be happy enough with “godchildren.”
On her movie career, Shu told CTS she enjoys working long hours on set and that she couldn’t be like Hong Kong film star Maggie Cheung (張曼玉), who has said her personal life comes first.
Shu has even sacrificed her famously long locks, which have featured in hair product commercials, for the big screen. For her role in the upcoming Hong Kong film, City Under Siege (全城戒備), Shu had to be persuaded to trim her hair to shoulder length, a decision that took her two weeks to make, reports the Liberty Times [ the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper].
China is not taking “bullshit” from A-mei (張惠妹), who can’t get one of her new songs past its censors. The authorities were offended by the “vulgarity” of her song Black Eats Black (黑吃黑), which appears on her new album Amit (阿密特). The offending lyrics included lines like, “It’s bullshit,” and, “Which girl was it that got cheated yet again, laid down to give you comfort?” (是哪個妹又被騙,躺著給你安慰).
A-mei and her lyricist
A-hsia (阿霞) didn’t want to dilute the song just for the Chinese market, so our “mainland compatriots” will have to do without it on their version of the album. On Internet discussion boards, A-mei fans across the strait are rolling their eyes at the Great Wall of Censorship.
But a few naughty phrases are the least of A-mei’s worries. In a television interview last week with Jennifer Shen (沈春華), she made a rare public acknowledgement of her romance with basketball player Sam Ho (何守正). The conversation inevitably touched upon marriage and children, and A-mei remarked that she has given thought to performing on stage while pregnant.
This apparently offhand remark was twisted in local media headlines such as “A-mei wants to get married and have children,” which caught the singer off guard, according to the China Times.
Ho’s reaction didn’t help. His response to A-mei’s musings about pregnancy: “She didn’t say [whose baby], now did she? Maybe it’s somebody else’s!” This had fans in an uproar, but A-mei dismissed the hoopla as “people not getting his sense of humor.”
Pop Stop doesn’t get Jam Hsiao’s (蕭敬騰) penchant for breaking into nature conservation areas. Last year Hsiao’s production company was fined NT$100,000 for setting fire to a piano at the Kaomei Wildlife Conservation Area (高美野生動物保護區), all for a music video.
This time Hsiao and his crew wandered into an ecological preserve at Yangmingshan National Park (陽明山國家生態保護) to do a photo shoot for an upcoming album, according to the Liberty Times.
The police fined him the equivalent of several parking tickets, but said they were mystified by Hsiao’s willingness to wander around in shorts as the area was populated by snakes.
Not to worry, Hsiao was wearing leggings under those shorts, apparently the latest male fashion fad in Japan, noted the Liberty Times. Too bad those leggings didn’t cover his precious calves. “Why is it that the first time I wear shorts for a promotional shoot, I get attacked by mosquitoes?” he whined.
In other pop news, the 20th annual Golden Melody Awards (金曲獎) ceremony takes place tomorrow, at which two
classic crooners team up to present the Best Mandarin Album award: Hong Kong singer-actor Jacky Cheung (張學友) and Taiwanese singer Judy Chiang (江蕙). Chiang is up for several awards herself.
On the evening of June 1, Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) apologized and resigned in disgrace. His crime was instructing his driver to use a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon. The Control Yuan is the government branch that investigates, audits and impeaches government officials for, among other things, misuse of government funds, so his misuse of a government vehicle was highly inappropriate. If this story were told to anyone living in the golden era of swaggering gangsters, flashy nouveau riche businessmen, and corrupt “black gold” politics of the 1980s and 1990s, they would have laughed.
When Lisa, 20, laces into her ultra-high heels for her shift at a strip club in Ukraine’s Kharkiv, she knows that aside from dancing, she will have to comfort traumatized soldiers. Since Russia’s 2022 invasion, exhausted troops are the main clientele of the Flash Dancers club in the center of the northeastern city, just 20 kilometers from Russian forces. For some customers, it provides an “escape” from the war, said Valerya Zavatska — a 25-year-old law graduate who runs the club with her mother, an ex-dancer. But many are not there just for the show. They “want to talk about what hurts,” she
It was just before 6am on a sunny November morning and I could hardly contain my excitement as I arrived at the wharf where I would catch the boat to one of Penghu’s most difficult-to-access islands, a trip that had been on my list for nearly a decade. Little did I know, my dream would soon be crushed. Unsure about which boat was heading to Huayu (花嶼), I found someone who appeared to be a local and asked if this was the right place to wait. “Oh, the boat to Huayu’s been canceled today,” she told me. I couldn’t believe my ears. Surely,
This is a deeply unsettling period in Taiwan. Uncertainties are everywhere while everyone waits for a small army of other shoes to drop on nearly every front. During challenging times, interesting political changes can happen, yet all three major political parties are beset with scandals, strife and self-inflicted wounds. As the ruling party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is held accountable for not only the challenges to the party, but also the nation. Taiwan is geopolitically and economically under threat. Domestically, the administration is under siege by the opposition-controlled legislature and growing discontent with what opponents characterize as arrogant, autocratic