Top model Lin Chih-lin (林志玲) found herself in a pickle this week after Next Magazine found that she had not paid her National Health Insurance (NHI) dues in more than three years.
Lin had no plans, however, to launch a Taiwanese branch of America’s anti-healthcare reform Tea Party Patriots. The Liberty Times, our sister newspaper, reported that the leggy beauty quickly paid the NT$210,000 she owed. Department of Health Minister Yaung Chih-liang (楊志良) sounded like he had had enough of the media ruckus when he
told the press that “she’s willing to admit that she made a careless oversight and she’s already given us the money.”
The magazine milked Lin’s payment in arrears for all it was worth, devoting four pages to the topic in last week’s issue. The article took a populist slant, writing that while this week’s NHI fee hike could potentially affect 3 million Taiwanese citizens, the monthly fee is mere pocket change for Lin, who reportedly makes more than NT$10 million per year. “A lot of wage earners are heartsick that their wallets will once again have to shed blood,” the gossip rag moaned, before adding “if everyone acted like Lin Chih-llin, the financial black hole would become larger and larger.”
Ironically, Lin was the target of flack five years ago for receiving “VIP treatment” at National Taiwan University Hospital after being thrown from a horse, even though she then paid only the minimum per month fee for NHI coverage. The ensuing ruckus led to several celebrities having their insurance fees raised by the Bureau of National Health Insurance, a provision nicknamed “the Lin Chih-lin clause”
(林志玲條款).
Last week was a banner week for Next in terms of unnamed sources. An anonymous reader, who was also the Department of Health’s source, brought Lin’s financial delinquency to Next’s attention. Another Deep Throat wannabe was the source of several text messages purportedly sent by actress Annie Yi (伊能靜) to her ex-husband Harlem Yu (庾澄慶), begging the singer-songwriter to take her back.
The duo’s marital discord was much publicized in 2009 before their divorce was finally announced in March last year, as was their custody battle for their young son, known in the press as Little Harry (小哈利).
The eight text messages, some of which Next gleefully splashed on its cover, have Yi allegedly groveling to Yu. “I was truly wrong, I hope that one day you’ll be able to forgive me,” one pleads. Next admitted that when it tried to trace the texts to their original online source, it discovered that the Web site had been taken down. Nonetheless, the magazine made a bit of effort to prove the veracity of the messages.
Though the ex-couple have adamantly denied the possibility of a reconciliation, Next insisted that the texts are genuine because they used Yi’s nickname for Yu: “Harry’s old pa” (哈老爸). Some were supposedly sent while Yi was vacationing in New York City (Yi allegedly assured her ex that she “had no night life” and was traveling with female companions only), while another referred to Yu’s recent trip abroad. “I saw that you are going to Bangladesh,” it read. “Be careful of your health and hygiene. Happy New Year!”
Rumors of a reunion started swirling in February, but Yi and Yu have yet to be seen in public together.
Hong Kong super hottie Andy Lau is happily married, but that hasn’t stopped the media from hounding him. Lau and long-time girlfriend Carol Chu (朱麗倩) denied being wed until the press uncovered an online record proving the two had gotten hitched in Nevada nearly two years ago. Since his “secret” marriage was uncovered earlier this year, media attention on the pair has only intensified.
Lau arrived in Taiwan to promote his latest film, Future X-Cops (未來警察), but reporters focused their questions on Lau’s home life and whether he intended to knock Chu up any time soon. One reporter asked if Lau felt any more carefree now that his marriage was out in the open.
Lau sighed, “the pressure has just gotten worse.”
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
This year’s Michelin Gourmand Bib sported 16 new entries in the 126-strong Taiwan directory. The fight for the best braised pork rice and the crispiest scallion pancake painstakingly continued, but what stood out in the lineup this year? Pang Taqueria (胖塔可利亞); Taiwan’s first Michelin-recommended Mexican restaurant. Chef Charles Chen (陳治宇) is a self-confessed Americophile, earning his chef whites at a fine-dining Latin-American fusion restaurant. But what makes this Xinyi (信義) spot stand head and shoulders above Taipei’s existing Mexican offerings? The authenticity. The produce. The care. AUTHENTIC EATS In my time on the island, I have caved too many times to
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not