Fledging actor Mark Chao (趙又廷) played the ungrateful son in this week’s tabloids, with his semi-retired entertainer father Allen Chao (趙樹海) in the role of the overbearing father. It all started when the younger Chao was named Best Actor for his role in popular police drama Black & White (痞子英雄) at the Golden Bell Awards two weeks ago, beating out audience favorite and former F4 member Vic Chou (周渝民), to the surprise and consternation of many in the audience and entertainment media. Rumors have been circulating that the elder Chao had an “innocent chat” with an “old friend” who happened to be a jury member prior to the awards ceremony.
Allen Chao says that isn’t true. But he’s been griping about how his 25-year-old son has turned down jobs for commercials and television shows featuring the father-son duo that Chao Senior had arranged. “I’d be lucky to be seen at all with my son on television these days,” Allen Chao was quoted as saying by the Apple Daily.
Black & White director Tsai Yueh-hsun (蔡岳勳), meanwhile, was cozying up to Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chu (陳菊) by throwing a party to thank the city for its support during the shooting of the television drama.
Chen and Tsai announced at the party last week that a movie version of Black & White will be set mostly in Kaohsiung, which Tsai says he hopes will help boost tourism in the southern city.
In another boost for tourism in Kaohsiung, it is estimated that pop-rock outfit Mayday (五月天) will draw more than 7,000 fans from Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore to its sold-out concert scheduled to be held in the city on Dec. 5. According to calculations by local media, the concert will generate NT$150 million for the local economy, cementing Mayday’s role as the new F4, the Taiwanese boy band that had a large following in Asia.
In other music-related news, singer Joanna Wang (王若琳) will reportedly return to the stage in January, just a few months after what was billed as a good-bye concert was held at The Wall (這牆) by Wang, who at the time was said to be returning to the US to resume her education.
Gossip observers suspect the bye-bye gig was a publicity stunt and question whether the 21-year-old singer’s upcoming show is worth NT$10,000 per seat, a price that even by big-name pop stars such as Wang Lee-hom (王力宏) and Aaron Kwok (郭富城) would have a hard time matching.
Wang’s record company Sony Music later explained that the NT$10,000 tickets were for sofa seats for two. But as Wang has been outspoken about her disappointment with Sony Music for making her a sweet, mellow jazz crooner rather than letting her to do what she truly wants, the upcoming concert may very well be an attempt by the record label to cash in on the defiant young star while it still can.
Finally, after months of rumors about pregnancies and miscarriages, Hong Kong paparazzi confirmed last week that Cecilia Cheung (張柏芝) is pregnant with twins.
The actress and mother of one was reportedly trying to have a child again with husband Nicholas Tse (謝霆鋒) to save their marriage in the wake of her star turn in the Edison Chen (陳冠希) sex photo scandal.
This is the year that the demographic crisis will begin to impact people’s lives. This will create pressures on treatment and hiring of foreigners. Regardless of whatever technological breakthroughs happen, the real value will come from digesting and productively applying existing technologies in new and creative ways. INTRODUCING BASIC SERVICES BREAKDOWNS At some point soon, we will begin to witness a breakdown in basic services. Initially, it will be limited and sporadic, but the frequency and newsworthiness of the incidents will only continue to accelerate dramatically in the coming years. Here in central Taiwan, many basic services are severely understaffed, and
Jan. 5 to Jan. 11 Of the more than 3,000km of sugar railway that once criss-crossed central and southern Taiwan, just 16.1km remain in operation today. By the time Dafydd Fell began photographing the network in earnest in 1994, it was already well past its heyday. The system had been significantly cut back, leaving behind abandoned stations, rusting rolling stock and crumbling facilities. This reduction continued during the five years of his documentation, adding urgency to his task. As passenger services had already ceased by then, Fell had to wait for the sugarcane harvest season each year, which typically ran from
It is a soulful folk song, filled with feeling and history: A love-stricken young man tells God about his hopes and dreams of happiness. Generations of Uighurs, the Turkic ethnic minority in China’s Xinjiang region, have played it at parties and weddings. But today, if they download it, play it or share it online, they risk ending up in prison. Besh pede, a popular Uighur folk ballad, is among dozens of Uighur-language songs that have been deemed “problematic” by Xinjiang authorities, according to a recording of a meeting held by police and other local officials in the historic city of Kashgar in
It’s a good thing that 2025 is over. Yes, I fully expect we will look back on the year with nostalgia, once we have experienced this year and 2027. Traditionally at New Years much discourse is devoted to discussing what happened the previous year. Let’s have a look at what didn’t happen. Many bad things did not happen. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) did not attack Taiwan. We didn’t have a massive, destructive earthquake or drought. We didn’t have a major human pandemic. No widespread unemployment or other destructive social events. Nothing serious was done about Taiwan’s swelling birth rate catastrophe.
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