This week’s tabloids were dominated by rumors of romantic reunions and new affaires d’amour. On home turf, Jay Chou (周杰倫) and Jolin Tsai (蔡依林) continue to make headlines after their sultry duet at the end of the Mando-pop king’s Taipei concert on June 13. Local tabloids have since generated plenty of titillating content for gossip hounds to chew on. One story that seems to have gained the most traction involves a diamond ring from a well-known luxury brand and an alleged marital proposal from Chou to Tsai after the concert.
Fans have greeted the Double-Js’ (雙-J) rumored reunion with great enthusiasm. A composite photo showing the pair cuddling together circulated on the Internet and was quickly picked up by the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) and the Apple Daily.
Both Tsai and Chou say the reports are rubbish. According to the Liberty Times, Chou responded to the question of why he chose to perform with Tsai by saying, “I just wanted to freak everyone out.” Meanwhile, Tsai was quoted as saying: “Getting back together? Thanks, but I’m not crazy.”
One man who is surely freaked out by the possibility of the two getting back together is Tsai’s agent Chen Tse-shan (陳澤杉). The Warner Music (華納音樂) impresario has not been on good terms with the Chairman after the two bickered over a chart-rigging controversy last year. Chen risks losing his cash cow to Chou’s record company, JVR Music (杰威爾音樂), if the Double-Js get really friendly with each other.
Having recovered from two year’s of depression and found Jesus, erstwhile Hong Kong pop diva Sammi Cheng (鄭秀文) is making a comeback with a Mandarin-language gospel album, Faith (信). Chinese-language media outlets also report that Cheng’s old flame Andy Hui (許志安) is back in the 38-year-old star’s life.
A series of snapshots and a chart published by the Liberty Times last Friday detailed Hui and Cheng’s itineraries in Taipei last week, which involved them staying at the same hotel, shooting music videos at the same studio and flying back to Hong Kong on the same plane. But according to their agents, the two are just good friends.
In other celebrity romance news, Chinese heartthrob Huang Xiaoming (黃曉明) and 21-year-old model Angelababy have become the hottest new item on the tabloids’ front pages after Huang publicly acknowledged their relationship in front of the media in Shanghai last week.
Hailed as Hong Kong’s new “sex goddess” (性感女神), Angelababy, whose real name is Yang Ying (楊穎), has quickly risen to stardom in the last couple of years based on nothing more than her looks.
A widely circulated batch of photos seems to indicate that Yang Ying had to go through plenty of revamping before she became the Angelababy we know now. But this has done nothing to dim Huang’s ardor. His public confession of love included an admission that he pampers his woman “as if she were a princess.” China’s most bankable actor is also reported to have introduced his sweetheart to Hong Kong entertainment mogul Peter Lam (林建岳), who, according to rumors, is planning to make Angelababy the next Cecilia Cheung (張柏芝).
After being arrested on drug-related charges for the third time, Taiwanese entertainer Da Bing (大炳), real name Yu Bing-hsian
(余炳賢), was baptized at the Home of Christ church in Taipei last Saturday. The disgraced entertainer said he wants to find inner strength through God’s love.
But will his sexual orientation get between him and God? Da Bing was quoted by the Apple Daily as saying, “That’s between God and me.”
In Pop Stop’s opinion, the quickest way for Da Bing to resolve this issue is to join the Tong-Kwang Light House Presbyterian Church (同光同志長老教會), Taiwan’s first church for gays and lesbians.
This is the year that the demographic crisis will begin to impact people’s lives. This will create pressures on treatment and hiring of foreigners. Regardless of whatever technological breakthroughs happen, the real value will come from digesting and productively applying existing technologies in new and creative ways. INTRODUCING BASIC SERVICES BREAKDOWNS At some point soon, we will begin to witness a breakdown in basic services. Initially, it will be limited and sporadic, but the frequency and newsworthiness of the incidents will only continue to accelerate dramatically in the coming years. Here in central Taiwan, many basic services are severely understaffed, and
Jan. 5 to Jan. 11 Of the more than 3,000km of sugar railway that once criss-crossed central and southern Taiwan, just 16.1km remain in operation today. By the time Dafydd Fell began photographing the network in earnest in 1994, it was already well past its heyday. The system had been significantly cut back, leaving behind abandoned stations, rusting rolling stock and crumbling facilities. This reduction continued during the five years of his documentation, adding urgency to his task. As passenger services had already ceased by then, Fell had to wait for the sugarcane harvest season each year, which typically ran from
It is a soulful folk song, filled with feeling and history: A love-stricken young man tells God about his hopes and dreams of happiness. Generations of Uighurs, the Turkic ethnic minority in China’s Xinjiang region, have played it at parties and weddings. But today, if they download it, play it or share it online, they risk ending up in prison. Besh pede, a popular Uighur folk ballad, is among dozens of Uighur-language songs that have been deemed “problematic” by Xinjiang authorities, according to a recording of a meeting held by police and other local officials in the historic city of Kashgar in
It’s a good thing that 2025 is over. Yes, I fully expect we will look back on the year with nostalgia, once we have experienced this year and 2027. Traditionally at New Years much discourse is devoted to discussing what happened the previous year. Let’s have a look at what didn’t happen. Many bad things did not happen. The People’s Republic of China (PRC) did not attack Taiwan. We didn’t have a massive, destructive earthquake or drought. We didn’t have a major human pandemic. No widespread unemployment or other destructive social events. Nothing serious was done about Taiwan’s swelling birth rate catastrophe.
RSS