The paparazzi got more than just the thrill of the chase with Taiwanese pop singer Yoga Lin (林宥嘉) last weekend when the 23-year-old talent show star tried to rough up several photographers while on a visit to Hong Kong.
Lin became angry when four photographers from the local gossip rag FACE got their cameras a little too close to him and his sweetheart, pop singer G.E.M., aka 19-year-old Gloria Tang (鄧紫棋). The photographers had been following the couple, who donned facemasks for most of the evening as they went out for dinner and a movie.
The altercation, which took place on a sidewalk, culminated with Lin trying to grab one of the photographers’ cameras and yelling, “This is our private matter. I’m Taiwanese, I came to here to do music, and I don’t want to be in your magazine.”
Photo: Taipei times
Too late for that. FACE published photos of the two out on the town, canoodling on the street. And for good measure, the magazine threw in a shot of Lin trying to grab at the photographers, whose faces were blotted out to protect their, ahem, privacy.
The photos are a blow to Lin and G.E.M., who the Apple Daily calls “Hong Kong’s Jolin Tsai (蔡依林),” for another reason: Although the two had been rumored to be an item since April, they had consistently denied a romantic relationship and said they were just “good friends.”
Perhaps the young couple might take a cue from actress Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛, otherwise known as Big S), who handled Taipei gossip reporters with ease in the wake of her secret marriage to 29-year-old Chinese restaurateur and multimillionaire Wang Xiaofei (汪小菲).
Big S, who is taking a break from a film shoot in Shanghai, brought her new hubby back to Taiwan to meet the parents last weekend, and the two greeted reporters outside a Taipei hot pot restaurant after a family dinner outing. While Wang mostly stayed silent — he was nursing a cold and was “shy” — Big S “generously answered” the reporters’ questions, as the China Times put it. She dismissed rumors that she was pregnant, saying, “Not yet, it’s too soon. Wish me luck!”
Public New Year’s Eve celebrations across Taiwan are usually star-studded affairs, and this year is no different. Pop diva Chang Hui-mei (張惠妹, better known as A-mei, 阿妹) and pop rock idols Mayday (五月天) are the headline entertainment for the New Year’s countdown at Taipei City Hall tonight. Singer Rainie Yang (楊丞琳) is on the lineup for Taichung’s celebration, and Jolin Tsai will be in Kaohsiung.
But if you want to greet 2011 with Wang Lee-hom (王力宏), Elva Hsiao (蕭亞軒) or S.H.E., you’d better hurry across the Taiwan Strait.
The Apple Daily lists the lucrative fees attracting these Mando-pop stars to various Chinese cities: Wang is raking in NT$7.5 million (US$255,000) for a concert in Shanghai (he’s also scheduled to appear in Taichung). Hsiao is collecting NT$4.45 million for a show in Nanjing, and girl group S.H.E. is performing as “H.E.” — without Selina Jen (任家萱), who is recovering from a burn injury — in Shenzhen to the tune of NT$3 million. Not a bad way to say goodbye to 2010.
And on that note, Pop Stop wishes its readers a Happy New Year.
In the mainstream view, the Philippines should be worried that a conflict over Taiwan between the superpowers will drag in Manila. President Ferdinand Marcos Jr observed in an interview in The Wall Street Journal last year, “I learned an African saying: When elephants fight, the only one that loses is the grass. We are the grass in this situation. We don’t want to get trampled.” Such sentiments are widespread. Few seem to have imagined the opposite: that a gray zone incursion of People’s Republic of China (PRC) ships into the Philippines’ waters could trigger a conflict that drags in Taiwan. Fewer
March 18 to March 24 Yasushi Noro knew that it was not the right time to scale Hehuan Mountain (合歡). It was March 1913 and the weather was still bitingly cold at high altitudes. But he knew he couldn’t afford to wait, either. Launched in 1910, the Japanese colonial government’s “five year plan to govern the savages” was going well. After numerous bloody battles, they had subdued almost all of the indigenous peoples in northeastern Taiwan, save for the Truku who held strong to their territory around the Liwu River (立霧溪) and Mugua River (木瓜溪) basins in today’s Hualien County (花蓮). The Japanese
Pei-Ru Ko (柯沛如) says her Taipei upbringing was a little different from her peers. “We lived near the National Palace Museum [north of Taipei] and our neighbors had rice paddies. They were growing food right next to us. There was a mountain and a river so people would say, ‘you live in the mountains,’ and my friends wouldn’t want to come and visit.” While her school friends remained a bus ride away, Ko’s semi-rural upbringing schooled her in other things, including where food comes from. “Most people living in Taipei wouldn’t have a neighbor that was growing food,” she says. “So
Whether you’re interested in the history of ceramics, the production process itself, creating your own pottery, shopping for ceramic vessels, or simply admiring beautiful handmade items, the Zhunan Snake Kiln (竹南蛇窯) in Jhunan Township (竹南), Miaoli County, is definitely worth a visit. For centuries, kiln products were an integral part of daily life in Taiwan: bricks for walls, tiles for roofs, pottery for the kitchen, jugs for fermenting alcoholic drinks, as well as decorative elements on temples, all came from kilns, and Miaoli was a major hub for the production of these items. The Zhunan Snake Kiln has a large area dedicated