The boss might be a funny guy, but the employees aren’t laughing. Comedian and TV entertainer Jacky Wu (吳宗憲) has been watching his business woes spill onto the gossip and entertainment pages this week.
Wu is under fire as the chief investor and CEO at Alpha Photonitek Corporation (阿爾發光子科技), which has been having trouble paying workers’ salaries, according to reports across Chinese-language media.
Alpha Photonitek manufactures LED lights, but those bright, energy-efficient and long-lasting bulbs are already losing their luster for the comedian.
His company has seen the staff decrease from 40 to 10 persons since forming in 2008. Over the past few months, employees have been complaining that their paychecks were arriving late, and so far this month, they have only received half of their salary, according to the Apple Daily. Workplace morale took yet another hit after one employee went for a doctor’s visit only to find that the company had not paid its health insurance fees.
Wu denied that the company was in “financial crisis,” saying it was in the process of reorganizing, which was the reason employees have had to wait on their salaries.
But Wu might have his eggs in too many baskets. He is known for taking the millions of NT dollars he rakes in from hosting his popular TV variety show programs and then investing in an assortment of business ventures, which include restaurants, a record company and a 3D animation studio.
His track record as a corporate executive doesn’t exactly shine. Last year, he resigned as CEO of H&T Electronics (翔昇電子) after just a few months because the company was NT$600 million in debt.
Wu attributed the hold-ups to personal debt, saying, “I myself am short on money. Don’t forget I pay taxes and have enormous expenses.”
According to the Apple Daily, Wu currently makes NT$4.16 million a month as the host of three television programs.
Another star feeling a bit of pressure is pop singer Aska Yang (楊宗緯). Yang is featuring in a stadium concert next month in Taipei along with 14 other fellow former contestants from the TV reality show One Million Star (超級星光大道).
The concert has been met with a lukewarm response, at least in terms of ticket sales. So far less than 2,000 of the 9,000 available seats have been taken, according to the Apple Daily.
Yang, a fan favorite from the first season of One Million Star, acknowledged the show’s popularity has waned, but was quoted by the United Daily News as saying “we just have to do what we do well.”
With his sights set on mega-pop stardom, Yang better hope ticket sales turn around come next month. He is planning to hand over his business affairs to Jolin Tsai’s (蔡依林) manager, Ko Fu-hung (葛福鴻), and has a new album and a self-produced fan magazine in the works. And then there’s his big screen aspirations: Yang is rumored to be in talks to star in a directorial debut by Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Justin Chou (周守訓).
The wedding bells are starting to ring louder for Selina Jen (任家萱) of the popular girl group S.H.E and her fiance Richard Chang (張承中), who proposed to her on stage during a concert at Taipei Arena (台北小巨蛋) back in May. The Apple Daily reports the two are planning to hold their wedding ceremony in April or May next year.
The lovebirds were spotted last week at a restaurant at Taipei 101, where they were attending Jen’s father’s 60th birthday.
Also in attendance were Jen’s bandmates Hebe Tian (田馥甄) and Ella Chen (陳嘉樺), and Apple obliged readers with an update on their current romances — or lack thereof.
The paper said Tian, who was rumored to be a former flame of Jay Chou (周杰倫), has largely been “low-key” about her love interests, which has fueled speculation that she is a lesbian.
Chen, who was rumored to have dated model Jerry Huang (黃志瑋) and boy band singer Wu Chun (吳尊), has only publicly acknowledged one past relationship, with a banker Tommy Chao (趙士懿), which ended when he supposedly cheated on her.
From the last quarter of 2001, research shows that real housing prices nearly tripled (before a 2012 law to enforce housing price registration, researchers tracked a few large real estate firms to estimate housing price behavior). Incomes have not kept pace, though this has not yet led to defaults. Instead, an increasing chunk of household income goes to mortgage payments. This suggests that even if incomes grow, the mortgage squeeze will still make voters feel like their paychecks won’t stretch to cover expenses. The housing price rises in the last two decades are now driving higher rents. The rental market
July 21 to July 27 If the “Taiwan Independence Association” (TIA) incident had happened four years earlier, it probably wouldn’t have caused much of an uproar. But the arrest of four young suspected independence activists in the early hours of May 9, 1991, sparked outrage, with many denouncing it as a return to the White Terror — a time when anyone could be detained for suspected seditious activity. Not only had martial law been lifted in 1987, just days earlier on May 1, the government had abolished the Temporary Provisions Effective During the Period of National Mobilization for Suppression of the Communist
Fifty-five years ago, a .25-caliber Beretta fired in the revolving door of New York’s Plaza Hotel set Taiwan on an unexpected path to democracy. As Chinese military incursions intensify today, a new documentary, When the Spring Rain Falls (春雨424), revisits that 1970 assassination attempt on then-vice premier Chiang Ching-kuo (蔣經國). Director Sylvia Feng (馮賢賢) raises the question Taiwan faces under existential threat: “How do we safeguard our fragile democracy and precious freedom?” ASSASSINATION After its retreat to Taiwan in 1949, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) regime under Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) imposed a ruthless military rule, crushing democratic aspirations and kidnapping dissidents from
Fundamentally, this Saturday’s recall vote on 24 Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) lawmakers is a democratic battle of wills between hardcore supporters of Taiwan sovereignty and the KMT incumbents’ core supporters. The recall campaigners have a key asset: clarity of purpose. Stripped to the core, their mission is to defend Taiwan’s sovereignty and democracy from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). They understand a basic truth, the CCP is — in their own words — at war with Taiwan and Western democracies. Their “unrestricted warfare” campaign to undermine and destroy Taiwan from within is explicit, while simultaneously conducting rehearsals almost daily for invasion,