For the likes of Sonia Sui (隋棠), resolving financial difficulties is as easy as getting undressed. One of Taiwan’s top models, Sui has been relatively conservative about stripping down for the camera. But after a tiff with TV station SetTV (三立電視台) over appearances on a rival station’s show and the purchase of an expensive new property in Taipei’s Xinyi District, the NT$2.5 million contract for modeling a new line of lingerie will come in handy.
This is a bit of a turnaround for Sui, who in May scorned offers by an online mahjong game site to pose in a bikini. According to Next Magazine, Sui was more than a little shy in the studio, and demanded that all unnecessary staff leave during the actual shoot. The reason for this turnaround is partly attributed to her boyfriend Yao Yuan-hao (姚元浩), since it was her appearance on his new program Rookies’ Diary (新兵日記) on FTV (民視) that caused her problems with SetTV. Yao reportedly was a gentleman about the whole thing, providing flowers and support for Sui in her ordeal before the camera.
Another touching little romance that is going on out in celebrity land is the unlikely coupling of Malaysian-born singer-songwriter Rynn Lim (林宇中) and otaku lust object Tina Li (李毓芬). The story has acquired further savor because Li’s name has long been romantically associated with Show Luo
(羅志祥). Lim and Li have been photographed openly consorting with each other, and there are suggestions that he has even written songs for Li, who is scheduled to release a new album in the not-too-distant future. There have been no sparks of romantic rivalry from Luo as of yet, but watch this space.
Rumors that Hong Kong sweetheart Karina Lam (林嘉欣) has got herself knocked up have surfaced in the media as an explanation of why the award-winning actress suddenly left Hong Kong in March. She flew back to her family home in Canada, leaving behind a career already set for ever greater success. According to the Liberty Times, an unnamed Chinese media group received information this week that the reason for Lam’s precipitate departure was that she was pregnant. The father is said to be commercial director Steve Yuen (袁劍偉), who is already very much married. The relationship was something of an open secret, with Lam even moving into the same apartment building as Yuan at one time. The pregnancy is still very much at the rumor stage, but celebrity gossip hounds are no doubt already hard on the trail.
F4 girl Fanny has decided to be Fanny no more, and Next Magazine reports that she aims to follow in another F4 girl’s footsteps and break into the music business under her own name: Liu Yue-yan (劉樂研). The wisdom of this move is questionable as Liu has always been more appreciated for her looks than her musical talent.
She has also taken the opportunity to publicize the fact that she now sports shaved private parts, adding to her luster. Shaving and adorning the delta of Venus is not a new ploy for attracting attention in celebrity land, though the story behind Fanny’s smooth look reveals the price a girl has to pay for art. Basically, it was all film director’s Tsai Ming-liang’s (蔡明亮) fault. According to Next Magazine, while working on Tsai’s film Help Me Eros (幫幫我愛神), Fanny, to help save money, checked into a cheap, and as it turned out, not very clean motel. After using a bath towel provided by the establishment, she broke out in a rash, and to facilitate the application of medicated cream, opted for a shaven maven. Whether she will have the area encrusted with crystals, in the manner of Pauline Lan (藍心湄), or have a boyfriend’s initials tattooed there, in the tradition of Jill Yu (于婕), remains to be seen.
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
The following three paragraphs are just some of what the local Chinese-language press is reporting on breathlessly and following every twist and turn with the eagerness of a soap opera fan. For many English-language readers, it probably comes across as incomprehensibly opaque, so bear with me briefly dear reader: To the surprise of many, former pop singer and Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) ex-lawmaker Yu Tien (余天) of the Taiwan Normal Country Promotion Association (TNCPA) at the last minute dropped out of the running for committee chair of the DPP’s New Taipei City chapter, paving the way for DPP legislator Su
It’s hard to know where to begin with Mark Tovell’s Taiwan: Roads Above the Clouds. Having published a travelogue myself, as well as having contributed to several guidebooks, at first glance Tovell’s book appears to inhabit a middle ground — the kind of hard-to-sell nowheresville publishers detest. Leaf through the pages and you’ll find them suffuse with the purple prose best associated with travel literature: “When the sun is low on a warm, clear morning, and with the heat already rising, we stand at the riverside bike path leading south from Sanxia’s old cobble streets.” Hardly the stuff of your
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