Pop Stop recalls those glorious months leading up to the 2008 Beijing Olympics when many in the international community balked at China’s terrible human rights record. The response from Taiwan: Don’t politicize sport.
And while politics and sports make poor bedfellows, inviting pop in for a “3P” is even worse.
Someone at the 54th Asia Pacific Film Festival, which runs until Dec. 4 in Taipei, appears not to have heard.
Photo: Taipei Times
After Taiwanese taekwondo sensation Yang Shu-chun’s (楊淑君) disqualification from the Asian Games in Guangzhou, China, and a few controversial statements by a Korean official, the film festival’s organizers canceled an invitation for South Korean girl band Girls Generation to perform at the event.
“The invitation isn’t appropriate as it’s a sensitive time,” a film festival official was reported as saying.
Spineless codswallop, Pop Stop thinks, especially considering the band’s popularity among Taiwan’s largely apolitical youth, who will be the only ones affected if the nine-member group refuses to perform here in the future.
Hopefully, with municipal elections past and tempers returning to normal, the Korean kerfuffle known as Sockgate has come to a close. Now, on to the real news.
And what could be more compelling than the latest gossip about Jolin Tsai’s (蔡依林) love life? When the pop diva was first eyed in Japan a few months back with New Zealand stud Vivian Dawson, gossip hounds saw a fairy-tale romance in the making.
Last week, the paparazzi sniffed out Tsai and Dawson heading towards Tsai’s Ruian Street (瑞安街) apartment in Taipei. A few days later, it was reported that Dawson had received an invitation to Tsai’s Christmas concert and it was further rumored that they would spend New Years together. Do we hear wedding bells?
Don’t bet your Christmas goose on it. Though the pair may spend some festive time under the mistletoe, it would seem there is plenty to go around.
“Vivian two-times Jolin with hottie in steamy photo session,” (錦榮背Jolin私會辣妹自拍) screamed a recent headline in the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper).
The rag spotted Dawson over the weekend with a sexy young thing wearing hot pants. The pair allegedly giggled and snapped their way through a shopping trip and then — ready for the denouement? — Dawson sent her away in a taxi.
That’s it. No hand holding or careless whispers. In fact, Dawson spent much of the time talking on his mobile phone — and probably with Tsai, who hours later picked him up from his apartment. So much for two-timing.
In other news, Selina Jen (任家萱) of popular girl band S.H.E continues to recover from injuries following an accident while filming in Shanghai. HIM International Music (華研國際音樂), Selina’s record company, said that though she is fighting bouts of fever she should be back on her feet soon.
And speaking of filming, Van Ness Wu (吳建豪) sustained a minor cut when a rock struck him on the back of the head while shooting a commercial, reported the United Daily News. Could it have been a message from Him upstairs?
The singer and actor was quickly whisked off to a clinic for treatment, but rather than use a doctor to shave off the hair around the gash, Wu’s manager called in a stylist for the trim. After a few clips, the 3cm wound was dressed and he was dismissed without stitches.
Meanwhile, Canadian-born Hong Kong actor and singer Edison Chen (陳冠希) is scheduled to release an album, appropriately titled Confusion, by Christmas.
The news follows Chen’s temporary exit from the entertainment industry in the wake of a 2008 sex scandal. He was quoted by NOWnews as saying the album won’t contain love songs, but rather touch on his personal life over the past few years.
As luck would have it, Jay Chou (周杰倫) penned one of the songs on the album. Chen is undoubtedly hoping for a return to his former success as a singer and actor, and having Chou’s name on the album credits should help.
A recent Apple Daily report said that Chou was on top as the Taiwanese entertainment industry’s biggest money earner this year, raking in a cool NT$852 million, almost double the NT$475.7 million earned by second-placed Jolin Tsai.
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
This year’s Michelin Gourmand Bib sported 16 new entries in the 126-strong Taiwan directory. The fight for the best braised pork rice and the crispiest scallion pancake painstakingly continued, but what stood out in the lineup this year? Pang Taqueria (胖塔可利亞); Taiwan’s first Michelin-recommended Mexican restaurant. Chef Charles Chen (陳治宇) is a self-confessed Americophile, earning his chef whites at a fine-dining Latin-American fusion restaurant. But what makes this Xinyi (信義) spot stand head and shoulders above Taipei’s existing Mexican offerings? The authenticity. The produce. The care. AUTHENTIC EATS In my time on the island, I have caved too many times to
In a stark demonstration of how award-winning breakthroughs can come from the most unlikely directions, researchers have won an Ig Nobel prize for discovering that mammals can breathe through their anuses. After a series of tests on mice, rats and pigs, Japanese scientists found the animals absorb oxygen delivered through the rectum, work that underpins a clinical trial to see whether the procedure can treat respiratory failure. The team is among 10 recognized in this year’s Ig Nobel awards (see below for more), the irreverent accolades given for achievements that “first make people laugh, and then make them think.” They are not