When rumors emerged last weekend that Jerry Yan
(言承旭) had been born out of wedlock, the TV actor and singer responded with a vague acknowledgement that turned into a tribute to his mother.
“I don’t really know [if the rumors are true] but I don’t think it’s important,” Yan said at a Children’s Day charity event
on Sunday.
“My mother worked hard to raise me, and I never robbed, I never stole. She is my role model,” he said. “No matter what, I’ll support her and I hope when I grow older I can make her even more proud of me.”
The 33-year old heartthrob talked about growing up in a one-parent household that struggled to pay the bills and also revealed he was offered work during high school as a gigolo.
He turned the offer down but admitted that he was highly tempted, especially after watching his friends who got into the business driving expensive cars.
“I remembered what my mother told me: ‘A poor man must keep his integrity. Whatever you do, don’t let yourself down and don’t let others down.’ So I said I wasn’t interested,” said Yan. “Besides, if I really went and did that, my mom would have killed me.”
One of Yan’s former bandmates from boy band F4, Van Ness Wu (吳建豪), was spotted in Hong Kong last weekend with a new girlfriend.
Paparazzi stalked the couple at a shopping mall in Central District and the Apple Daily posted video footage on its Web site, which began with a shot of the Taiwanese American singer and mystery girl looking amorously at each other while riding an escalator.
The pursuit culminated at a clothing boutique when Wu’s sweetheart discovered cameras pointed their way and ducked behind the counter. Aww, isn’t that cute? She’s not used to the media, was the tone of the Apple Daily video report.
Wu played it cool and spoke to the reporters, avoiding their questions about his companion. But later on he confirmed through his manager that she was indeed his new girlfriend.
Wu’s manager wouldn’t reveal her name but offered a few details. Ms “A” (as in Ms “ABC” or American-born Chinese) is 25 years old, 160cm tall, and a Christian. Pop Stop wonders whether Wu, a recent convert, has started to look for a loophole in that “celibacy card” he signed in 2008.
Meanwhile, Stefanie Sun (孫燕姿) was in Kenting to perform at a Spring Scream weekend event. The Singaporean pop singer raked in a cool NT$3 million for playing at the Peninsula Pop Music Concert (半島音樂盛世演唱會), according to our sister paper the Liberty Times.
But her singing was the last thing the media was interested in. Reporters were dying to know when Sun is going to finally marry “mustache man” (鬍鬚男), aka Nadim van der Ros, the Dutch beau she’s been dating for three years. Was a secret marriage in the works? “When we have the time, and of course we won’t be telling you when,” said an uncharacteristically shy Sun.
Ethan Ruan (阮經天) has been catching flack lately, not for cheating on his girlfriend as alleged last month, but for being in school.
The star of the hit gangster flick Monga (艋舺) has been enrolled at Hsing Wu College (醒吾科技學院) for six years, prompting speculation that he has avoided graduating in order to stall his compulsory military service.
The Apple Daily did some digging and found that Ruan is in good company. Entertainers Joseph Cheng (鄭元暢), Mike Ho (賀軍翔) and Chang Shu-wei (張書偉) are fellow Hsing Wu students who have also been enrolled for six years.
But the real kings among celebrity draft-dodgers, the report said, are pop idols Matthew Lin (明道), who is entering his ninth year of school, and Bobby Dou
(竇智孔), who has been enrolled in university for 10 years.
Actress Shu Qi (舒淇) has been discovering her inner otaku. The starlet has become addicted to the Facebook game Happy Farm. She fessed up to her obsession in a recent posting on her official blog: “I check [my farm] when I get up in the morning, I check before I go to bed. When I go out to eat, I think about that farm and often find myself saying, ‘I have to go ... you guys keeping eating, I have to get back to my harvest.’”
Pop Stop concludes this week with a nod to Taiwan’s latest YouTube star, Lin Yu-chun (林育群), who has been dubbed by UK newspaper the Daily Mail as “Taiwan’s Susan Boyle.”
Lin, a chubby young man who calls himself “Little Fatty” (小胖), sported a bowl haircut and bow tie while singing a stunning rendition of the Whitney Houston/Dolly Parton hit I Will Always Love You on the TV singing contest show One Million Star (超級星光大道).
The video can be viewed at www.youtube.com/watch?v=aA-tOsM6F4Y&feature=channel
In the mainstream view, the Philippines should be worried that a conflict over Taiwan between the superpowers will drag in Manila. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr observed in an interview in The Wall Street Journal last year, “I learned an African saying: When elephants fight, the only one that loses is the grass. We are the grass in this situation. We don’t want to get trampled.” Such sentiments are widespread. Few seem to have imagined the opposite: that a gray zone incursion of People’s Republic of China (PRC) ships into the Philippines’ waters could trigger a conflict that drags in Taiwan. Fewer
March 18 to March 24 Yasushi Noro knew that it was not the right time to scale Hehuan Mountain (合歡). It was March 1913 and the weather was still bitingly cold at high altitudes. But he knew he couldn’t afford to wait, either. Launched in 1910, the Japanese colonial government’s “five year plan to govern the savages” was going well. After numerous bloody battles, they had subdued almost all of the indigenous peoples in northeastern Taiwan, save for the Truku who held strong to their territory around the Liwu River (立霧溪) and Mugua River (木瓜溪) basins in today’s Hualien County (花蓮). The Japanese
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Whether you’re interested in the history of ceramics, the production process itself, creating your own pottery, shopping for ceramic vessels, or simply admiring beautiful handmade items, the Zhunan Snake Kiln (竹南蛇窯) in Jhunan Township (竹南), Miaoli County, is definitely worth a visit. For centuries, kiln products were an integral part of daily life in Taiwan: bricks for walls, tiles for roofs, pottery for the kitchen, jugs for fermenting alcoholic drinks, as well as decorative elements on temples, all came from kilns, and Miaoli was a major hub for the production of these items. The Zhunan Snake Kiln has a large area dedicated