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.
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