More than 200 celebrities from Taiwan and Hong Kong attended large charity events held by television stations last weekend, all with the goal of raising money for the victims of Typhoon Morakot. Participating glitterati included Andy Lau (劉德華), Leon Lai (黎明), Sandra Ng (吳君如), Chang Fei (張菲), Hu Gua (胡瓜), Shu Qi (舒淇) and Judy Chiang (江蕙).
One of the weekend’s most enthusiastic volunteers, Chinese action star-turned-philanthropist Jet Li (李連杰), accompanied aid workers from Taiwan’s Red Cross Society on a visit to nine locations in Kaohsiung County on Saturday.
On a sadder note, Aboriginal star A-mei (張惠妹) lost both her uncle and brother-in-law to the typhoon in her hometown in Taitung County.
In the latest installment of the developing drug-taking controversy in Japan’s showbiz firmament, police are reportedly investigating possible links between Noriko Sakai and her surfer husband Yuichi Takaso, both arrested for drug possession, and J-pop singer and actor Manabu Oshio, who was arrested on Aug. 3 on suspicion of drug use and has been connected to a 30-year-old woman found dead at an apartment in Tokyo’s Roppongi district.
Oshio, 31, tested positive for ecstasy and admitted he had fled the scene after the unidentified woman, a bar hostess and his mistress of six months, took two pills and lost consciousness.
According to the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper), police suspect that Oshio, Sakai and Takaso are part of an intricate network of drug trading that involves big-name stars.
Other celebrities implicated in the snowballing scandal, according to Tokyo Sports, a Japanese daily, include actors Hideaki Ito and Shinji Takeda.
Following news that Jay Chou (周杰倫) has joined the cast of Michel Gondry’s The Green Hornet, assuming the role of Kato alongside Seth Rogen, Nicolas Cage and Cameron Diaz, pop idol Wang Lee-hom (王力宏) revealed last week that he has been working on a film script for the past six months.
While keeping mum about the story, the first-time scriptwriter said that he will soon begin looking for prospective investors, as well as a suitable director to shoot the NT$100 million movie starring none other than Wang himself.
When asked by the Liberty Times if he would make a better martial arts sidekick than Chou, whose English is less than fluent, Wang brushed off the question, saying: “I heard that Chou already began intensive English courses. He should do fine.”
In local showbiz pseudo-news, Apple Daily snappers spotted divorcee Annie Yi (伊能靜) shopping for toys with her son at Breeze Center (微風廣場) last week. The paper printed a detailed account of the trip, gleefully reporting that the boy played with a toy sewing machine and read comic books for girls after being left unattended by his mother.
The concerned newspaper concluded that Yi failed as a mother by exposing her precious son to the danger of kidnapping.
In the mainstream view, the Philippines should be worried that a conflict over Taiwan between the superpowers will drag in Manila. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr observed in an interview in The Wall Street Journal last year, “I learned an African saying: When elephants fight, the only one that loses is the grass. We are the grass in this situation. We don’t want to get trampled.” Such sentiments are widespread. Few seem to have imagined the opposite: that a gray zone incursion of People’s Republic of China (PRC) ships into the Philippines’ waters could trigger a conflict that drags in Taiwan. Fewer
March 18 to March 24 Yasushi Noro knew that it was not the right time to scale Hehuan Mountain (合歡). It was March 1913 and the weather was still bitingly cold at high altitudes. But he knew he couldn’t afford to wait, either. Launched in 1910, the Japanese colonial government’s “five year plan to govern the savages” was going well. After numerous bloody battles, they had subdued almost all of the indigenous peoples in northeastern Taiwan, save for the Truku who held strong to their territory around the Liwu River (立霧溪) and Mugua River (木瓜溪) basins in today’s Hualien County (花蓮). The Japanese
Pei-Ru Ko (柯沛如) says her Taipei upbringing was a little different from her peers. “We lived near the National Palace Museum [north of Taipei] and our neighbors had rice paddies. They were growing food right next to us. There was a mountain and a river so people would say, ‘you live in the mountains,’ and my friends wouldn’t want to come and visit.” While her school friends remained a bus ride away, Ko’s semi-rural upbringing schooled her in other things, including where food comes from. “Most people living in Taipei wouldn’t have a neighbor that was growing food,” she says. “So
Whether you’re interested in the history of ceramics, the production process itself, creating your own pottery, shopping for ceramic vessels, or simply admiring beautiful handmade items, the Zhunan Snake Kiln (竹南蛇窯) in Jhunan Township (竹南), Miaoli County, is definitely worth a visit. For centuries, kiln products were an integral part of daily life in Taiwan: bricks for walls, tiles for roofs, pottery for the kitchen, jugs for fermenting alcoholic drinks, as well as decorative elements on temples, all came from kilns, and Miaoli was a major hub for the production of these items. The Zhunan Snake Kiln has a large area dedicated