Though the summer saw a slew of celebrity marriages, romance is cooling off in the autumn with several breakups. Receiving top billing, of course, is the hyper-public divorce of actress and singer Cecilia Cheung (張柏芝) and actor Nicholas Tse (謝霆鋒). After months of marital squabbles following the “airplane incident,” — the name given to an encounter in May between Cheung and Canto-pop star Edison Chen (陳冠希) — the couple confirmed that they were calling it quits at the end of last month.
And it would seem that the chance meet between the former lovers has also caused a permanent rift in Chen’s relationship with girlfriend Vincy Yeung (楊永晴), according to NOWnews and the China Times. Although Yeung stood by Chen following the 2008 photo scandal in which shots of him pictured in flagrante delicto were leaked to the public, she is alleged to have been furious about Chen and Cheung’s renewed friendship. Chen’s alleged booty call to lingerie model and ex-flame Gloria Wong (黃榕) in June probably didn’t help either.
Yeung has reportedly stopped following Chen’s microblog and refuses to take his calls.
Photo: Taipei Times
For his part, Chen, who is currently in New York, is trying to salvage the relationship by posting on his microblog cutesy images of himself alone with captions such as “Love” and “Where am I going now?”
Jolin Tsai (蔡依林), meanwhile, continues to fend off rumors that her boyfriend Vivian Dawson is a man about town. Yam News reported that Dawson spent a holiday in Thailand with Hong Kong model Hidy Yu (余曉彤) after pictures of the two frolicking were leaked on the Internet.
“Nothing has changed in our relationship,” Tsai told reporters when queried about the images. She added that she hopes to wed by age 40, according to the Apple Daily. Dawson, for his part, noted that he has been friends with Yu for years and that the photos were snapped years ago.
A storm in a teacup? Probably. Yu, who is also attached, admitted to touring Thailand with Dawson, but said the trip was too short to have sparked love.
In other celebrity squabbles, Hong Kong actress and UNICEF’s Ambassador to China Maggie Cheung (張曼玉) just can’t seem to hang on to her man. NOWnews reported that Cheung, 47, looked frail and drawn last week after rumors emerged that her 40-year-old squeeze of four years, architect Ole Scheeren, had taken an amorous interest in a 30-year-old fashion designer.
Hong Kong’s Oriental Sunday was more pointed. After spotting Cheung at a Hong Kong airport, the magazine reported that she had a “neck of tree roots, skeletal fingers and looked pitiful,” (樹根頸和白骨爪暴現, 實在是我見猶憐), which is a stark contrast to the almost celestial poise she usually displays.
Ole’s alleged indiscretions follow earlier rumors that he was two-timing Cheung with a 20-year-old colleague. The subtext to this news appears to be that Cheung should be dating someone her own age. As the Chinese media pointed out, she’s experienced “eight failed relationships and a broken marriage.”
But not everything is so gloomy on the romance front. At a press conference held last week to promote a jewelry exhibit, 18-year-old Hannah Quinlivan (昆凌) said she was ready for marriage, reported the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper). This follows on the heels of a trip to France last month with alleged beau Jay Chou (周杰倫). But Quinlivan was quick to quash rumors they are a couple, stating that they slept in separate beds. She added that it wasn’t fair to assume they were a couple if they weren’t photographed holding hands.
In other wedding news, Selina Jen (任家萱) and fiance Richard Chang (張承中) aren’t sleeping together, sina.com reported. Chang said at a charity auction last week that he’s been sleeping on the couch since the couple moved into new digs. But fans of the couple needn’t be concerned their relationship and betrothal are on the rocks. The gallant Chang has been keeping out of the bedroom because “Selina’s skin is still very fragile,” he said, adding that Jen has to wear a suit that covers her body to help her recover from burns received in an accident last year.
“Her hands are wrapped up like Doraemon,” Chang said, referring to the Japanese manga character that has balloon-like hands. Jen will wear a specially designed bandage at their wedding, scheduled for Oct. 31, so Chang can fit the ring on her finger.
Taiwan’s overtaking of South Korea in GDP per capita is not a temporary anomaly, but the result of deeper structural problems in the South Korean economy says Chang Young-chul, the former CEO of Korea Asset Management Corp. Chang says that while it reflects Taiwan’s own gains, it also highlights weakening growth momentum in South Korea. As design and foundry capabilities become more important in the AI era, Seoul risks losing competitiveness if it relies too heavily on memory chips. IMF forecasts showing Taiwan widening its lead over South Korea have fueled debate in Seoul over memory chip dependence, industrial policy and
“China wants to unify with Taiwan at the lowest possible cost, and it currently believes that unification will become easier and less costly as time passes,” wrote Amanda Hsiao (蕭嫣然) and Bonnie Glaser in Foreign Affairs (“Why China Waits”) this month, describing how the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is playing the long game in its quest to seize Taiwan. This has been a favorite claim of many writers over the years, easy to argue because it is so trite. Very obviously, if the PRC isn’t attacking Taiwan, it is waiting. But for what? Hsiao and Glaser’s main point is trivial,
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
It took 12 years and months of standing in the same mountain location for director Liang Chieh-te (梁皆得) to capture a few seconds of footage: Taiwan’s largest resident raptor locking talons with its mate and spinning through the air in a courtship ritual. With only about 1,000 left in the wild and very short flight windows, the mountain hawk-eagle remains among Taiwan’s most elusive birds. The species generally produces only one offspring per year. Using forest cameras, the film crew and research teams document the arduous process the monogamous pairs go through for the chick to hatch and grow up, weathering
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