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.
May 11 to May 18 The original Taichung Railway Station was long thought to have been completely razed. Opening on May 15, 1905, the one-story wooden structure soon outgrew its purpose and was replaced in 1917 by a grandiose, Western-style station. During construction on the third-generation station in 2017, workers discovered the service pit for the original station’s locomotive depot. A year later, a small wooden building on site was determined by historians to be the first stationmaster’s office, built around 1908. With these findings, the Taichung Railway Station Cultural Park now boasts that it has
Wooden houses wedged between concrete, crumbling brick facades with roofs gaping to the sky, and tiled art deco buildings down narrow alleyways: Taichung Central District’s (中區) aging architecture reveals both the allure and reality of the old downtown. From Indigenous settlement to capital under Qing Dynasty rule through to Japanese colonization, Taichung’s Central District holds a long and layered history. The bygone beauty of its streets once earned it the nickname “Little Kyoto.” Since the late eighties, however, the shifting of economic and government centers westward signaled a gradual decline in the area’s evolving fortunes. With the regeneration of the once
The latest Formosa poll released at the end of last month shows confidence in President William Lai (賴清德) plunged 8.1 percent, while satisfaction with the Lai administration fared worse with a drop of 8.5 percent. Those lacking confidence in Lai jumped by 6 percent and dissatisfaction in his administration spiked up 6.7 percent. Confidence in Lai is still strong at 48.6 percent, compared to 43 percent lacking confidence — but this is his worst result overall since he took office. For the first time, dissatisfaction with his administration surpassed satisfaction, 47.3 to 47.1 percent. Though statistically a tie, for most
In February of this year the Taipei Times reported on the visit of Lienchiang County Commissioner Wang Chung-ming (王忠銘) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and a delegation to a lantern festival in Fuzhou’s Mawei District in Fujian Province. “Today, Mawei and Matsu jointly marked the lantern festival,” Wang was quoted as saying, adding that both sides “being of one people,” is a cause for joy. Wang was passing around a common claim of officials of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the PRC’s allies and supporters in Taiwan — KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party — and elsewhere: Taiwan and
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