Awards ceremonies in Taiwan — whether of the beauty pageant, music, television or film variety — are generally occasions for jealousy, name-calling and all around caterwauling. So it was with some surprise that there was little controversy reported at this year’s Golden Horse Awards (金馬獎), presented on Saturday night. The awards are considered the Chinese-language equivalent of the Oscars.
Taiwan’s Leon Dai (戴立忍), who garnered five awards for his No Puedo Vivir Sin Ti (不能沒有你), a black-and-white film about a father down on his luck who struggles to retain custody of his daughter, was the biggest news.
More important for gossip observers, however, was the hug Dai gave actress Guey Lun-mei (桂綸鎂), when she presented him with the award for Best Screenplay.
Dai, 43, and Guey, 26, have been rumored to be lovers for years, but kept their relationship under wraps. Under the microscopic scrutiny of gossip rags, a hug comes with a lot of significance (or at least a pretext for reporters to write whatever they want).
So tongues started wagging on Saturday night when the two embraced — for the first time in public, reported the Apple Daily.
As Dai walked off stage, one wag asked about the hug. “Especially warm (特別溫暖),” he replied. Which logically, for this paparazzo, led to a question about marriage. Dai responded with a shrug and a laugh.
The Liberty Times speculated that the age difference between the two celebs prevents them from going public with the relationship.
And speaking of leaps of logic, Apple was making a few of its own when it snapped pictures of sometimes-entertainer Allen Chao (趙樹海) and model Sonia Sui (隋棠) having dinner, in a report which suggested that the Chao is keeping love in the family.
Chao is the father of Mark Chao (趙又廷), who stars with Sui in the cop drama Black & White (痞子英雄). The two young actors have filmed a couple of love scenes together.
When asked if Chao knew that Sui was dating actor Yao Yuan-hao (姚元浩), he angrily responded,“Whether or not she has a boyfriend, it’s not my business. I’m her elder.” To which Sui added, “He is my father and I am his daughter.”
Meanwhile, netizens are giving TV host and pop singer Pauline Lan (藍心湄) a hard time, according to an Apple report. And it’s not over the 45-year-old’s notorious affairs with younger men. They claim that the outfit Lan wore for a photo shoot shown on TVBS and published in the Apple Daily was nearly identical to the mostly see-through costume worn by Britney Spears in her video Toxic.
But Lan’s “outfit,” which consists of a few strategically placed crystals, in the snaps — which look like the product of an epic Photoshop session — makes Britney’s Toxic duds look practically Amish by comparison.
“I just want to show audiences what the body of a 45-year-old woman looks like,” she said. “Are my breasts okay?”
Further up the cup-size alphabet, television host Chen Jin-pei (陳今佩) has lost 39kg in the past two years (and went from an H cup to an E). The 58 year-old, known in the entertainment world as the “Great White Shark” (大白鯊), told reporters that she trimmed down for a love interest in China.
Pop Stop wonders if Chen will take a leaf out of Taiwanese actress Vivian Hsu (徐若瑄) flab-fight book.
While on the set of the film Hot Summer Days (全城熱戀), which is set to hit theaters in February, Hsu found a way to rid herself of the copious amounts of sushi she was forced to eat for her role as a love-struck heiress, reported Sina.com.
“I didn’t want to gain weight. So when the director stopped filming, I’d throw up the sushi,” she said.
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
President William Lai (賴清德) has championed Taiwan as an “AI Island” — an artificial intelligence (AI) hub powering the global tech economy. But without major shifts in talent, funding and strategic direction, this vision risks becoming a static fortress: indispensable, yet immobile and vulnerable. It’s time to reframe Taiwan’s ambition. Time to move from a resource-rich AI island to an AI Armada. Why change metaphors? Because choosing the right metaphor shapes both understanding and strategy. The “AI Island” frames our national ambition as a static fortress that, while valuable, is still vulnerable and reactive. Shifting our metaphor to an “AI Armada”
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