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.”
Oct. 27 to Nov. 2 Over a breakfast of soymilk and fried dough costing less than NT$400, seven officials and engineers agreed on a NT$400 million plan — unaware that it would mark the beginning of Taiwan’s semiconductor empire. It was a cold February morning in 1974. Gathered at the unassuming shop were Economics minister Sun Yun-hsuan (孫運璿), director-general of Transportation and Communications Kao Yu-shu (高玉樹), Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI) president Wang Chao-chen (王兆振), Telecommunications Laboratories director Kang Pao-huang (康寶煌), Executive Yuan secretary-general Fei Hua (費驊), director-general of Telecommunications Fang Hsien-chi (方賢齊) and Radio Corporation of America (RCA) Laboratories director Pan
The consensus on the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chair race is that Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) ran a populist, ideological back-to-basics campaign and soundly defeated former Taipei mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), the candidate backed by the big institutional players. Cheng tapped into a wave of popular enthusiasm within the KMT, while the institutional players’ get-out-the-vote abilities fell flat, suggesting their power has weakened significantly. Yet, a closer look at the race paints a more complicated picture, raising questions about some analysts’ conclusions, including my own. TURNOUT Here is a surprising statistic: Turnout was 130,678, or 39.46 percent of the 331,145 eligible party
The classic warmth of a good old-fashioned izakaya beckons you in, all cozy nooks and dark wood finishes, as tables order a third round and waiters sling tapas-sized bites and assorted — sometimes unidentifiable — skewered meats. But there’s a romantic hush about this Ximending (西門町) hotspot, with cocktails savored, plating elegant and never rushed and daters and diners lit by candlelight and chandelier. Each chair is mismatched and the assorted tables appear to be the fanciest picks from a nearby flea market. A naked sewing mannequin stands in a dimly lit corner, adorned with antique mirrors and draped foliage
The election of Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) as chair of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) marked a triumphant return of pride in the “Chinese” in the party name. Cheng wants Taiwanese to be proud to call themselves Chinese again. The unambiguous winner was a return to the KMT ideology that formed in the early 2000s under then chairman Lien Chan (連戰) and president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) put into practice as far as he could, until ultimately thwarted by hundreds of thousands of protestors thronging the streets in what became known as the Sunflower movement in 2014. Cheng is an unambiguous Chinese ethnonationalist,
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