This week’s gossip begins with celebrity drug trouble, and ends with one angry mother.
Veteran actors Coco Sun (孫興) and Mok Siu-chung (莫少聰) of Hong Kong made headlines after they were arrested in Beijing last month on suspicion of possessing and consuming illegal substances. On April 15, the police collared Sun for allegedly having marijuana and ketamine in his apartment. The 47-year-old actor soon admitted that he has used various kinds of drugs for the past five years to give himself “energy” as his two failed marriages have exhausted him.
Mok was arrested on the same day for marijuana use. The 50-year-old actor said he only smoked a joint that a friend gave him at a party out of politeness, adding that it was his first time. According to some media reports, the bust was a setup intended to teach the lothario a lesson.
Photo: Taipei Times
The arrests sent the Chinese showbiz world into a frenzy, according to Chinese media. It is reported that Sun, who could face life imprisonment, turned stool pigeon and named other celebrity druggies and his dealers — including a “heavyweight star” — in the hope of receiving a lighter punishment. Many stars and celebrities have reportedly fled China’s capital. For the record, Sun says he didn’t snitch.
Mok was released on Saturday after a 14-day stint in the Chaoyang District Detention Center. As for Sun, Chinese media speculate that the most credible scenario is one year in rehab.
Meanwhile, back in Taiwan, Chinese restaurateur Zhang Lan (張蘭) came face-to-face with local media still upset about how they were treated during the March 22 wedding of her son, Wang Xiaofei (汪小菲), and Barbie Hsu (徐熙媛, aka Big S). Zhang was in town over the weekend for a business meeting. Though gossip hounds have put her under a microscope, the 54-year-old businesswoman started off the trip coming across as self-assured and talked confidently.
On Friday last week, Zhang revealed her plan to open five to 10 restaurants in Taiwan in the next three years. “I will bring the best Chinese cuisine to improve Taiwanese people’s palate,” she said. And after an earthquake on Saturday, the entrepreneur was quoted as saying: “I like earthquakes. I bring earthquakes because I am full of energy.”
But the attention seemed to get too much by Sunday, when local media reported that a journalist asked why Wang only gave part of the wedding money he and Big S received to charity, after the couple had promised to donate it all. “I think you are very unkind … I am an entrepreneur, not your prey,” Zhang was quoted as screaming. “I am pissed off!”
The canonical shot of an East Asian city is a night skyline studded with towering apartment and office buildings, bright with neon and plastic signage, a landscape of energy and modernity. Another classic image is the same city seen from above, in which identical apartment towers march across the city, spilling out over nearby geography, like stylized soldiers colonizing new territory in a board game. Densely populated dynamic conurbations of money, technological innovation and convenience, it is hard to see the cities of East Asia as what they truly are: necropolises. Why is this? The East Asian development model, with
June 16 to June 22 The following flyer appeared on the streets of Hsinchu on June 12, 1895: “Taipei has already fallen to the Japanese barbarians, who have brought great misery to our land and people. We heard that the Japanese occupiers will tax our gardens, our houses, our bodies, and even our chickens, dogs, cows and pigs. They wear their hair wild, carve their teeth, tattoo their foreheads, wear strange clothes and speak a strange language. How can we be ruled by such people?” Posted by civilian militia leader Wu Tang-hsing (吳湯興), it was a call to arms to retake
This is a deeply unsettling period in Taiwan. Uncertainties are everywhere while everyone waits for a small army of other shoes to drop on nearly every front. During challenging times, interesting political changes can happen, yet all three major political parties are beset with scandals, strife and self-inflicted wounds. As the ruling party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is held accountable for not only the challenges to the party, but also the nation. Taiwan is geopolitically and economically under threat. Domestically, the administration is under siege by the opposition-controlled legislature and growing discontent with what opponents characterize as arrogant, autocratic
When Lisa, 20, laces into her ultra-high heels for her shift at a strip club in Ukraine’s Kharkiv, she knows that aside from dancing, she will have to comfort traumatized soldiers. Since Russia’s 2022 invasion, exhausted troops are the main clientele of the Flash Dancers club in the center of the northeastern city, just 20 kilometers from Russian forces. For some customers, it provides an “escape” from the war, said Valerya Zavatska — a 25-year-old law graduate who runs the club with her mother, an ex-dancer. But many are not there just for the show. They “want to talk about what hurts,” she
RSS