The rich and famous can usually be counted on to embarrass themselves for our entertainment, especially with the media already antsy about the way they were treated during the March 22 wedding of Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛, aka Big S) and Chinese restaurateur Wang Xiaofei (汪小菲) last week. At the nuptials, Chinese businesswoman Zhang Lan (張蘭), the mother of the groom, made some expansive claims about how good her connections in China were, claiming close ties with businessman Wang Jianlin (王健林), whose Wanda Group (萬達集團) owns the Sanya Sheraton Hotel where the wedding took place.
His son Wang Sicong (王思聰), who is CEO of the financial group, said in an online post that Zhang had never met his father, and while the hotel may have offered discounts for accommodation for the wedding party, it certainly was not free. Fans of Big S have taken to the Internet in defense of their idol, but Zhang and her son haven’t won any points from these accusations of rumormongering.
A number of romantic entanglements were picked up on the celebrity radar over the past week. One involved actress Novia Lin (林若亞) and Edwin Gerard (紀亞文). Lin has strenuously denied any connection with Gerard, a Chinese American male model eight years her junior, but the intrepid paparazzi of Next Magazine caught them on camera this week holding hands and sharing an umbrella. These steamy revelations of public intimacy have led to all kinds of speculation that the 34-year-old actress might be casting off her previously demure facade for something a little more titillating. She is currently promoting the Golden Bell Award-nominated television soap Shan Huen (閃昏), in which she plays a forceful woman with a fondness for sadomasochistic sex, and has also started modeling lingerie.
Photo: Taipei Times
Another romantic entanglement to make the pages of Next Magazine was the seemingly surreptitious meeting between actress Shu Qi (舒淇) and Eddie Peng (彭于晏), who has been quoted as having described Shu as “a goddess.” Shu should have headed back to Shenzhen from the Maldives after attending the March 26 wedding of good friend Kelly Lin (林熙蕾), but she took a detour via Taipei, where she met Peng at the well-known night spot Fucking Place (操場).
Numerous friends and colleagues were there as well, but Next Magazine suggests that there may be something a little more to the meeting than a casual get together. The venue’s name may have sent paparazzi into a frenzy, but the two actors have a long-standing friendship, and while there have been rumors of possible romantic involvement, the sighting last week adds little substance to the case the gossip rags are trying to build.
In other news, Jay Chou (周杰倫) may have reason to congratulate himself. Although he endured many insults as a result of his participation in a subsidiary role in The Green Hornet superhero movie, it got him noticed among young Americans.
Pop Stop felt a rush of patriotic excitement when it saw rumors that Chou had been nominated for the MTV Music Awards. Closer investigation revealed that he has been “nominated to be nominated,” and has joined the likes of Aaron Johnson from Kick-Ass, Arnie Hammer from The Social Network and Alex Pettyfer from I Am Number Four as eligible nominees for the 2011 “Best Male Breakout Star.” Other accolades include his appearance on the nomination list for Time magazine’s list of the world’s most influential people. He’s clearly on the road to becoming Taiwan’s first international star of stage and screen.
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