Regular readers of Pop Stop will know that popular television host Hu Gua’s (胡瓜) son-in-law, Li Jin-liang (李進良), has been more than a handful even before his June nuptials to Hu’s daughter. Before getting hitched to Hu Ying-chen (胡盈禎), Li allegedly carried on an affair with starlet Mao Mao (毛毛). His past misadventures include charges of sexual harassment by a Japanese porn star and an all-night party with two friends and three hostesses at a Taipei hotel.
But Li may have turned out to be an even bigger boob than either of the Hus imagined. The plastic surgeon was recently fined NT$150,000 and ordered to stop working for three months by the Taipei Department of Health after illegally inserting silicone breast implants into a patient. The enhancers are only allowed for breast reconstruction surgery — the merely vain must content themselves with saline-filled breast implants.
Li admitted to wrongful use of the artificial lady lumps, but defended himself by insisting many of his colleagues do the same thing. A United Daily News report showed that Li’s Web site plugged silicone breast implants for NT$200,000 but did not mention they were limited to reconstruction surgery only. The article helpfully explained that women with “airport physiques” (飛機場體質) prefer silicone because saline implants look less natural on skinny bodies. In the interest of fairness, the United Daily News also added that many other plastic surgery clinic Web sites tout silicone breast implants without explaining the legal limitations on their use.
But Li’s troubles did not stop with the Department of Health. The patient, Hong Mei-nai (洪美奈), claimed at several dramatic press conferences that Li never acted with the breast of intentions. She said the silicone implants were inserted without her consent and that Li also neglected to provide follow-up care when one of the jelly rolls allegedly leaked after
the operation.
A few days after the punishment was levied against Li, Hong, who claimed the fine was too light, “staggered” to the entrance of the district prosecutor’s office with her lawyer and banged on the door in front of a clutch of reporters. Our sister paper the Liberty Times reported that Hong wants to charge Li with professional negligence and slander for claiming that she allegedly tried to extort the clinic for money after the ill-fated operation. She also complained that Li had yet to reach out to her for a settlement or even to apologize. Li’s lawyer responded that he and his client were still in the process of preparing a response to Hong’s accusations.
Hong has been a constant presence in the media since news of the scandal broke about two weeks ago. At a previous gathering, she sobbed while jabbing her left armpit with a pair of scissors, explaining she couldn’t feel a thing. “After the surgery, I was like a handicapped person,” she said. “I couldn’t get out of bed. All I could do was lie there and wet myself.” In addition to the numbness and physical weakness, she says she now suffers from anemia, an irregular heartbeat and mental exhaustion. And, Hong tearfully added, she was forced to postpone her upcoming wedding in the US.
Li could take a page from the life of Eason Chan (陳奕迅) on how to be family man. Oriental Sunday reports that the Hong Kong pop singer and actor has yet to kick his longtime nicotine habit, but sneaks outdoors and smokes in parking lots so his wife, Hilary Tsui (徐濠縈), and school-age daughter won’t have to inhale secondhand smoke. The couple was rumored to have weathered marital troubles last summer, but the storm seems to have passed. Oriental Sunday says that Chan is so busy with his upcoming record that he counts on Tsui to look after their child’s education. The doting mum carries her daughter’s heavy book bag all the way to the school door and picks her up after classes to send her to an English-language buxiban. Tsui was overheard reminding her daughter to study hard “so daddy doesn’t worry about you.”
By global standards, the traffic congestion that afflicts Taiwan’s urban areas isn’t horrific. But nor is it something the country can be proud of. According to TomTom, a Dutch developer of location and navigation technologies, last year Taiwan was the sixth most congested country in Asia. Of the 492 towns and cities included in its rankings last year, Taipei was the 74th most congested. Taoyuan ranked 105th, while Hsinchu County (121st), Taichung (142nd), Tainan (173rd), New Taipei City (227th), Kaohsiung (241st) and Keelung (302nd) also featured on the list. Four Japanese cities have slower traffic than Taipei. (Seoul, which has some
In our discussions of tourism in Taiwan we often criticize the government’s addiction to promoting food and shopping, while ignoring Taiwan’s underdeveloped trekking and adventure travel opportunities. This discussion, however, is decidedly land-focused. When was the last time a port entered into it? Last week I encountered journalist and travel writer Cameron Dueck, who had sailed to Taiwan in 2023-24, and was full of tales. Like everyone who visits, he and his partner Fiona Ching loved our island nation and had nothing but wonderful experiences on land. But he had little positive to say about the way Taiwan has organized its
Writing of the finds at the ancient iron-working site of Shihsanhang (十 三行) in New Taipei City’s Bali District (八里), archaeologist Tsang Cheng-hwa (臧振華) of the Academia Sinica’s Institute of History and Philology observes: “One bronze bowl gilded with gold, together with copper coins and fragments of Tang and Song ceramics, were also found. These provide evidence for early contact between Taiwan aborigines and Chinese.” The Shihsanhang Web site from the Ministry of Culture says of the finds: “They were evidence that the residents of the area had a close trading relation with Chinese civilians, as the coins can be
Michael slides a sequin glove over the pop star’s tarnished legacy, shrouding Michael Jackson’s complications with a conventional biopic that, if you cover your ears, sounds great. Antoine Fuqua’s movie is sanctioned by Jackson’s estate and its producers include the estate’s executors. So it is, by its nature, a narrow, authorized perspective on Jackson. The film ends before the flood of allegations of sexual abuse of children, or Jackson’s own acknowledgment of sleeping alongside kids. Jackson and his estate have long maintained his innocence. In his only criminal trial, in 2005, Jackson was acquitted. Michael doesn’t even subtly nod to these facts.
RSS