It is a sorry state of affairs when the country’s top gossip rag is reduced to peddling rumors based on tarot card readings, but the denials of Jay Chou (周杰倫) and former inamorata Jolin Tsai (蔡依林) have offered little room for creative (mis)interpretation. Pop Stop reported last week that Tsai had simply replied, “Getting back together? Thanks, but I’m not crazy,” when asked if she would be rekindling romance with Chou after a steamy onstage performance at a recent concert.
Next Magazine unearthed various circumstantial details about the frequency that Chou and Tsai have been in communication over the past half year and provided a report of Tsai’s sister Tsai Min-wen (蔡旻紋) visiting a tarot card reader and asking about Jolin’s love life. While the fortune-teller would not reveal the content of the consultation, he agreed to make another reading for the magazine, in which he revealed that the two superstars are likely to build on their recent good relations. The cards say that the Double-Js (雙-J) are about to become an item. But don’t hold your breath.
The dust is still settling on the 21st Golden Melody Awards ceremony that took place on Saturday, with mixed reviews of an event that was disrupted by heavy rain, time overruns and some uninspired emceeing. Harlem Yu (庾澄慶) has taken lots of flak since and has even promised to swear off future MC gigs.
As everyone already knows, pop diva Chang Hui-mei (張惠妹), better known as A-mei (阿妹), was the biggest winner of the evening, which according to the aforementioned fortune-teller, was a direct result of her breakup with basketball heartthrob Sam Ho (何守正), who brought bad luck to her career. Ho had the good grace to text A-mei to congratulate her, but local media are already designating him as very much a “former” boyfriend.
While most applauded A-mei’s recognition by the Golden Melody Awards (she received her first Best Female Mandarin Singer award eight years ago), consensus did not go across the board. There are some who beg to differ regarding the Golden Melody Awards given to David Tao (陶喆) and boy band 1976.
The girl group S.H.E and crooner Lin Yu-chia (林宥嘉), who were both given the cold shoulder by the Golden Melody panel, won recognition from HitFM’s Global Pop Music Charts (全球流行音樂金榜), who picked them as the most popular band and male mandarin singer, respectively, for the first half of this year.
Elsewhere, the news on the street is that actress Gong Li (鞏俐) has finally called time on her troubled marriage to Singaporean tobacco tycoon Ooi Hoe-seong (黃和祥). The story broke in The Southern Metropolis Entertainment Weekly (南都娛樂周刊) earlier this week and is now being coupled with rumors of a possible budding relationship between Gong and John Cusack, her co-star in the film Shanghai, which is currently showing in Taiwan.
In other celebrity news, things may be getting hot and sweaty, but in a good way. The rumored affair between aspiring actress Angelbaby, real name Yang Ying (楊穎), and successful actor and singer Huang Xiaoming (黃曉明) is now out in the open. According to NOW.com, Huang has used his connections to advance Angelbaby’s career in China, where the 21-year-old actress is currently promoting a “photo album” titled Paradise featuring pics of her in various states of undress while staying in Guam. Otaku, eat your hearts out.
Speaking of which, a new star has appeared on the otaku firmament. Meet Da Yuan (大元), real name Lin Ying-chen (林盈臻), who has leveraged her 32E breasts into celebrity status across the Chinese-speaking world. A recent spot on the CtiTV (中天) variety program University (大學生了沒), where her cleavage served as a more than adequate substitute for wit or personality, seems to have cemented her place in otaku heaven and secured a number of advertising contracts. She will now be going tit-to-tit with other big-breasted beauties such as Yaoyao (瑤瑤), real name Kuo Shu-yao (郭書瑤), and Tofu Sister (豆花妹), real name Tsai Huang-ru (蔡黃汝). Let the battle begin!
A few weeks ago I found myself at a Family Mart talking with the morning shift worker there, who has become my coffee guy. Both of us were in a funk over the “unseasonable” warm weather, a state of mind known as “solastalgia” — distress produced by environmental change. In fact, the weather was not that out of the ordinary in boiling Central Taiwan, and likely cooler than the temperatures we will experience in the near-future. According to the Taiwan Adaptation Platform, between 1957 and 2006, summer lengthened by 27.8 days, while winter shrunk by 29.7 days. Winter is not
A sultry sea mist blankets New Taipei City as I pedal from Tamsui District (淡水) up the coast. This might not be ideal beach weather but it’s fine weather for riding –– the cloud cover sheltering arms and legs from the scourge of the subtropical sun. The dedicated bikeway that connects downtown Taipei with the west coast of New Taipei City ends just past Fisherman’s Wharf (漁人碼頭) so I’m not the only cyclist jostling for space among the SUVs and scooters on National Highway No. 2. Many Lycra-clad enthusiasts are racing north on stealthy Giants and Meridas, rounding “the crown coast”
March 25 to March 31 A 56-year-old Wu Li Yu-ke (吳李玉哥) was straightening out her artist son’s piles of drawings when she inadvertently flipped one over, revealing the blank backside of the paper. Absent-mindedly, she picked up a pencil and recalled how she used to sketch embroidery designs for her clothing business. Without clients and budget or labor constraints to worry about, Wu Li drew freely whatever image came to her mind. With much more free time now that her son had found a job, she found herself missing her home village in China, where she
In recent years, Slovakia has been seen as a highly democratic and Western-oriented Central European country. This image was reinforced by the election of the country’s first female president in 2019, efforts to provide extensive assistance to Ukraine and the strengthening of relations with Taiwan, all of which strengthened Slovakia’s position within the European Union. However, the latest developments in the country suggest that the situation is changing rapidly. As such, the presidential elections to be held on March 23 will be an indicator of whether Slovakia remains in the Western sphere of influence or moves eastward, notably towards Russia and