Private information leaked onto the Internet has provided ample material for Taiwan’s gossip rags, but the most recent scandal surrounding the posting of transsexual TV host Li Ching’s (利菁) medical history on a public Web site has hit all kinds of nerves in the entertainment and media industries.
The entertainer, whose real name is Regine Wu Ming-enn
(吳明恩), has repeatedly claimed to have been a hermaphrodite who opted to become a woman. She has long insisted that while she did not plan on having children, she was physically capable of becoming pregnant. A medical report from the doctor who is said to have performed the surgery claims that Wu was a man who had a sex-change operation.
Wu has consistently stated that she is a woman, and has rebuffed all suggestions that she is in fact a transsexual. The controversy surrounding her claims has even led local transsexual artist Hsue-er (雪兒) and South Korean transsexual star Harisu (河莉秀) to attack her for not supporting her own. The new revelations refute Wu’s own story of starting life as a hermaphrodite, but she has vehemently denied any acquaintance with the doctor Chang Chi-Chung (張啟中), whose article detailing Wu’s sex-change procedure was posted online.
The Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) reported Wednesday that the Department of Health (衛生署) would investigate Chang’s behavior, which may be considered illegal. Chang insists that he published the details in a specialist journal for the benefit of medical professionals, and has no idea how the material was disseminated on the Internet.
The leak and the subsequent media frenzy over details of Wu’s sex change (which, let’s face it, is just a minor twist on what is pretty much old news) follows in the wake of revelations earlier in the week that model and aspiring actress Alicia Liu (劉薰愛) was also a man. The revelation was made by a high school classmate. Liu held a press conference on Jan. 15 to reveal that she had undergone a sex change at 18, stating that she was happy with the way she was now. Liu has won overwhelming support from colleagues in the entertainment industry.
Big S (大S), otherwise known as Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛), has taken a step on a new career path. Despite negative reviews for her television soap Summer of Bubbles (泡沫之夏), in which she stars together with TV idol Peter Ho (何潤東), Chinese interests have approached Hsu and her leading man as product spokespersons for a range of wedding apparel. According to Next Magazine, the deal is worth NT$10 million each.
Hsu has also hit the headlines for a series of new pro-vegetarian ads for People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) Asia. One poster features Hsu striking an assertive pose in unbuttoned cut-off shorts and a rack-enhancing tank top with the words “Powered by Tofu” against a slogan “I Am Barbie Hsu, and I Am a Vegetarian.” A second poster has her in cute mode and cuddling up to a little piglet, with the words “Compassion is beautiful. Go vegetarian.”
“Animals are like my brothers and sisters, my friends and my family,” the TV personality said in a PETA statement. Hsu was voted Asia’s Sexiest Vegetarian woman in PETA’s 2009 poll, so whether or not her endorsement is going to turn the otaku hordes of Taiwan into passionate chickpea-munching animal lovers, is certainly something to watch. The unbuttoned shorts are clearly the key.
On a lighter note, the Liberty Times reported that the cute little piglet shat on Hsu’s whiter-than-white boob-tube during the shoot. With her usual candor, Hsu immediately announced to the assemble crew, “This ain’t my shit.” (這不是我拉的屎！) The piglet, which had initially been called Bacon, was subsequently re-christened Da Da (大大), baby talk for poo.
Janet Hsieh (謝怡芬), host of Fun Taiwan (瘋台灣) is marking her arrival as a serious force in Taiwan’s entertainment industry with the publication of a volume of autobiography titled Traveling With 100 Toothbrushes (帶一百支牙刷去旅行). The big revelation is that — yawn — she still gives her heart to her first boyfriend from her MIT days, and that she fails to gush sycophantically over her agent, former lover and the guy who pretty much made her the celebrity she is today — Tim Li (李景白). As much as Pop Stop disapproves of her efforts to rival Big S and others in foxy appeal, we still say: More power to her.
If one asks Taiwanese why house prices are so high or why the nation is so built up or why certain policies cannot be carried out, one common answer is that “Taiwan is too small.” This is actually true, though not in the way people think. The National Property Administration (NPA), responsible for tracking and managing the government’s real estate assets, maintains statistics on how much land the government owns. As of the end of last year, land for official use constituted 293,655 hectares, for public use 1,732,513 hectares, for non-public use 216,972 hectares and for state enterprises 34 hectares, yielding
The small platform at Duoliang Train Station in Taitung County’s Taimali Township (太麻里) served villagers from 1992 to 2006, but was eventually shut down due to lack of use. Just 10 years later, the abandoned train station had become widely known as the most beautiful station in Taiwan, and visitors were so frequent that the village had to start restricting traffic. Nowadays, Duoliang Village (多良) is known as a bit of a tourist trap, with a mandatory, albeit modest, admission fee of NT$10 giving access to a crowded lane of vendors with a mediocre view of the ocean and the trains
Traditionally, indigenous people in Taiwan’s mountains practice swidden cultivation, or “slash and burn” agriculture, a practice common in human history. According to a 2016 research article in the International Journal of Environmental Sustainability, among the Atayal people, this began with a search for suitable forested slopeland. The trees are burnt for fertilizer and the land cleared of stones. The stones and wood are then piled up to make fences, while both dead and standing trees are retained on the plot. The fences are used to grow climbing crops like squash and beans. The plot itself supports farming for three years.
President William Lai (賴清德) on Nov. 25 last year announced in a Washington Post op-ed that “my government will introduce a historic US$40 billion supplementary defense budget, an investment that underscores our commitment to defending Taiwan’s democracy.” Lai promised “significant new arms acquisitions from the United States” and to “invest in cutting-edge technologies and expand Taiwan’s defense industrial base,” to “bolster deterrence by inserting greater costs and uncertainties into Beijing’s decision-making on the use of force.” Announcing it in the Washington Post was a strategic gamble, both geopolitically and domestically, with Taiwan’s international credibility at stake. But Lai’s message was exactly
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