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.
In late October of 1873 the government of Japan decided against sending a military expedition to Korea to force that nation to open trade relations. Across the government supporters of the expedition resigned immediately. The spectacle of revolt by disaffected samurai began to loom over Japanese politics. In January of 1874 disaffected samurai attacked a senior minister in Tokyo. A month later, a group of pro-Korea expedition and anti-foreign elements from Saga prefecture in Kyushu revolted, driven in part by high food prices stemming from poor harvests. Their leader, according to Edward Drea’s classic Japan’s Imperial Army, was a samurai
Located down a sideroad in old Wanhua District (萬華區), Waley Art (水谷藝術) has an established reputation for curating some of the more provocative indie art exhibitions in Taipei. And this month is no exception. Beyond the innocuous facade of a shophouse, the full three stories of the gallery space (including the basement) have been taken over by photographs, installation videos and abstract images courtesy of two creatives who hail from the opposite ends of the earth, Taiwan’s Hsu Yi-ting (許懿婷) and Germany’s Benjamin Janzen. “In 2019, I had an art residency in Europe,” Hsu says. “I met Benjamin in the lobby
April 22 to April 28 The true identity of the mastermind behind the Demon Gang (魔鬼黨) was undoubtedly on the minds of countless schoolchildren in late 1958. In the days leading up to the big reveal, more than 10,000 guesses were sent to Ta Hwa Publishing Co (大華文化社) for a chance to win prizes. The smash success of the comic series Great Battle Against the Demon Gang (大戰魔鬼黨) came as a surprise to author Yeh Hung-chia (葉宏甲), who had long given up on his dream after being jailed for 10 months in 1947 over political cartoons. Protagonist
A fossil jawbone found by a British girl and her father on a beach in Somerset, England belongs to a gigantic marine reptile dating to 202 million years ago that appears to have been among the largest animals ever on Earth. Researchers said on Wednesday the bone, called a surangular, was from a type of ocean-going reptile called an ichthyosaur. Based on its dimensions compared to the same bone in closely related ichthyosaurs, the researchers estimated that the Triassic Period creature, which they named Ichthyotitan severnensis, was between 22-26 meters long. That would make it perhaps the largest-known marine reptile and would