News about the increasingly operatic breakup between Cecilia Cheung (張柏芝) and Nicholas Tse (謝霆鋒) continues to dominate the grapevine even following the revelation and supposed papering over of what has now become known as the “airplane incident” (機上事件) in which Cheung was recently photographed with her ex-lover Edison Chen (陳冠希). Chen was responsible for a ruckus between Cheung and Tse in 2008 when explicit photos of his sexual adventures, which prominently featured Cheung, were posted on the Internet.
Since the incriminating in-flight photo was published, there have been rumors stemming from one blogger claiming to be a close friend of the couple that this trivial incident had been set aside and that cordial, if not warm, relations had been re-established between the two. This rapprochement either didn’t last long or never actually happened, for in developments this week, Cheung appears to have taken her two children away from the Tse household in an act that the Apple Daily suggests is aimed at causing maximum anxiety to Tse’s mother, Deborah Lee (狄波拉), who reportedly dotes on her two grandchildren.
This most recent action on Cheung’s part has added fuel to the fire in the ongoing battle between Cheung and Lee, who, according to the Apple Daily, hasn’t been a fan of the marriage since first learning of their nuptials in the Philippines through newspaper reports in 2006.
Photo: Taipei Times
The paper suggests that Lee may well be the source of a stream of information about Cheung’s lack of mothering skills, and it is a matter of record that Cheung has put career and lifestyle well ahead of her role of wife and mother. After the most recent marital debacle, the couple continued to pursue their separate careers, though on the financial front, rumors that Cheung is doing her best to suck as much money out of Tse’s family as possible are gaining currency.
According to a report in the United Daily News, Cheung has obtained control over much of Tse’s NT$2.2 billion personal fortune in the course of their marriage. The welfare of their two children and threats of suicide have reportedly been the bargaining chips used in these financial settlements.
Tse, who has not been without his own extra-marital entanglements, has complicated matters with his ongoing friendship with Gillian Chung (鍾欣桐), who, as it happens, was also featured in Chen’s Internet photo scandal. In a revelation earlier this week, Tse reportedly told a friend that “she [Cheung] isn’t my wife any more” (她不再是我的女人).
Still, the situation between Cheung and Tse remains fluid, and nobody in the gossip media is prepared to make any predictions about the outcome.
In a report published yesterday in Hong Kong’s Orient Daily (東方日報) citing an unnamed source close to Tse, the film star has summoned his lawyer to Kuala Lumpur, where he is currently filming, in order to consult on the implications of divorce and custody proceedings. Tse’s father Patrick Tse (謝賢), who had previously taken Cheung’s side in the many matrimonial ups and downs, seems to be closing ranks with his wife and son.
As for Chen, who remains the granddaddy of the explicit photo leak, it seems that he is at it again, though in this instance, the lack of explicit detail has caused some agencies to suggest that Chen is simply playing the media for a fool. The photos to have emerged following the “airplane incident” are of him and Huang Rongmi (黃榕密), a minor Hong Kong starlet who, it is suggested, Chen has had a three-year relationship with. Huang is quoted by Now.com as stating that: “I don’t care if he wants it all day, I’ll always go over. He is very clean, and will always bathe first.” It can’t help but make one wonder when elementary personal hygiene counts for so much among members of the entertainment industry. In the same report, friends of Huang are quoted as suggesting that Chen makes constant sexual demands and will not tolerate refusal. Clearly the scandal of 2008 has done little the tame his appetites.
Ajay Verma, a consultant gastroenterologist at Kettering general hospital in Northamptonshire, says our gut is a “complex machine.” “It is constantly providing us with the nutrition we need, initially to grow and develop, and then for us to survive, thrive and repair from injury and illness.” How can we keep it functioning well? Put simply: “Make sure what you put into it is balanced, and that you clear out its waste products adequately,” Verma says. “In a general gastroenterology clinic, the most common conditions we see are irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), gastroesophageal reflux disease, inflammatory bowel disease and constipation,” says Nisha
And so, in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s trip to the People’s Republic of China (PRC), all the experts on the Strait of Hormuz suddenly became experts on US-China-Taiwan relations. The Internet has certainly expanded human knowledge. Lots of these sudden experts made noise this week about Trump’s words after the meeting with PRC dictator Xi Jin-ping (習近平). Trump is going to sell out Taiwan! Longtime Taiwan commentator J. Michael Cole summed the situation up neatly in the Guardian: “We need to keep in mind that he has a tendency to say many things — sometimes contradicting himself within
Last week US President Donald Trump was asked by a reporter whether he would speak on the phone to the President of Taiwan. “l’ll speak to him. I speak to everybody. We have that situation very well in hand,” Trump said. This marked the second time in a couple of weeks he had said he would talk to the President of Taiwan. In 2016 he famously took a call from then-president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), when he was president-elect. Despite warnings that the apocalypse was nigh because of a phone call, the world quickly forgot about the conversation between two democratically-elected presidents.
May 25 to May 31 Few believed that apples could be cultivated on a commercial scale in Taiwan’s high mountains. When horticulturalist Cheng Chao-hsiung (程兆熊) first proposed the idea in 1955, both American and Taiwanese colleagues dismissed it as implausible, arguing that temperate fruit could not be reliably grown on a subtropical island, especially on rugged terrain. However, it was this terrain in the Central Mountain Range where many Chinese Civil War veterans were resettled in the late 1950s. With limited job prospects and no family in Taiwan, they were placed on cooperative farms aimed toward self-sufficiency. Some say the conditions