Wang Lee-hom (王力宏) usually does a good job of keeping his private life out of the tabloids, but a wig and mysterious travel plans sparked rumors that he recently enjoyed a tropical getaway with actress Shu Qi (舒淇).
A reporter from the Liberty Times (our sister newspaper) saw Wang arriving at Taoyuan International Airport (桃園國際機場) sporting the fake tresses. On the same night, Shu was spotted flying into Hong Kong. Though there is no concrete proof that the two were vacationing together, intrepid netizens noted that their arrival times coincided with flights from Bali.
“After 10 years of disguising himself, this was the first time he failed,” commented the Liberty Times, referring to Wang’s ability to keep the press off his trail. While some of Wang’s fans mocked him on the Internet for his subterfuge, others were frothing at the mouth over the potential of a juicy new celebrity romance.
Photo: Taipei Times
“If it’s true, then announce it!” went one typical posting.
Rumors of a relationship have dogged the two ever since Shu appeared in one of Wang’s music videos five years ago. After shooting wrapped up, the two reportedly started seeing each other and the tabloids even said that they had been spotted in Tokyo department stores shopping for a diamond ring. Wang and Shu are said to have kept their alleged affair under wraps because his mother disapproves of the romance, but fans are now keeping their fingers crossed.
On Dec. 29, the Liberty Times received a tip-off from a reader about Wang and Shu’s arrivals in Taiwan and Hong Kong, respectively. A reporter rushed to Taoyuan and managed to intercept Wang, who was wearing his disguise and looked surprised to have been discovered. When asked if he had been in Bali with Shu Qi, Wang did not respond.
The two have refused to confirm or deny reports of their trip, but fans keeping an eagle eye on all their blog postings believe there is enough evidence. Shu insisted that she had planned to go skiing over the winter holidays, but readers figured out that a photo she posted online of herself enjoying the slopes was actually a year old. Some fans also believe that Wang convinced a blogger to post a snap of a “chance encounter” with the singer in Beijing. They argue that the jacket he is wearing in the photo would have provided scant protection against the Chinese capital’s frigid winter temperatures, and therefore the report is fake.
The Liberty Times speculated that the two spent their rumored Bali trip celebrating the critical success of Chinglish, a theatrical production by Chinese-American playwright David Henry Hwang (黃哲倫) that uses 11 of Wang’s songs. Time magazine placed it at number three in its list of last year’s top 10 Broadway shows. Wang’s music was also included in How Can I Live on Without You (如果沒有你) by Cloud Gate Theatre (雲門舞集).
Shu issued a statement chiding the press for making a big deal out of nothing. “This is not worth responding to,” she told reporters. Managers for both stars said that their agencies had been closed for the New Year’s weekend and were therefore unable to confirm or deny the rumors.
Wang’s love life has long been the focus of intense speculation. When the singer recently uploaded a photo to his blog that he snapped while recording a song, some fans mistook the background for a home studio. While some sighed with envy over Wang’s luxurious bachelor pad, others lamented how lonely he looked in the picture and called for Wang to find himself a wife right away. The singer’s management company quickly sent out a clarification that Wang was at Platinum Studios (白金錄音室).
Even though their bitter separation and divorce topped the headlines for months on end last year, Nicholas Tse (謝霆鋒) and Cecilia Cheung (張柏芝) are now denying rumors that they are getting back together. Tse confirmed that he often sees his ex-wife, but explained that it was for the sake of their two small children. Tse and Cheung were recently spotted taking their oldest son Lucas to a feng shui master, but Tse wrote on his blog that they were just enjoying a family outing as parents. After spending a good part of last year duking it out over real estate holdings and custody arrangements, Tse said that he and Cheung “cooled down” after their divorce was finalized and are now open to being good friends — but no more than that.
“How China Threatens to Force Taiwan Into a Total Blackout” screamed a Wall Street Journal (WSJ) headline last week, yet another of the endless clickbait examples of the energy threat via blockade that doesn’t exist. Since the headline is recycled, I will recycle the rebuttal: once industrial power demand collapses (there’s a blockade so trade is gone, remember?) “a handful of shops and factories could run for months on coal and renewables, as Ko Yun-ling (柯昀伶) and Chao Chia-wei (趙家緯) pointed out in a piece at Taiwan Insight earlier this year.” Sadly, the existence of these facts will not stop the
Taiwan is one of the world’s greatest per-capita consumers of seafood. Whereas the average human is thought to eat around 20kg of seafood per year, each Taiwanese gets through 27kg to 35kg of ocean delicacies annually, depending on which source you find most credible. Given the ubiquity of dishes like oyster omelet (蚵仔煎) and milkfish soup (虱目魚湯), the higher estimate may well be correct. By global standards, let alone local consumption patterns, I’m not much of a seafood fan. It’s not just a matter of taste, although that’s part of it. What I’ve read about the environmental impact of the
It is jarring how differently Taiwan’s politics is portrayed in the international press compared to the local Chinese-language press. Viewed from abroad, Taiwan is seen as a geopolitical hotspot, or “The Most Dangerous Place on Earth,” as the Economist once blazoned across their cover. Meanwhile, tasked with facing down those existential threats, Taiwan’s leaders are dying their hair pink. These include former president Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文), Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim (蕭美琴) and Kaohsiung Mayor Chen Chi-mai (陳其邁), among others. They are demonstrating what big fans they are of South Korean K-pop sensations Blackpink ahead of their concerts this weekend in Kaohsiung.
The captain of the giant Royal Navy battleship called his officers together to give them a first morsel of one of World War II’s most closely guarded secrets: Prepare yourselves, he said, for “an extremely important task.” “Speculations abound,” one of the officers wrote in his diary that day — June 2, 1944. “Some say a second front, some say we are to escort the Soviets, or doing something else around Iceland. No one is allowed ashore.” The secret was D-Day — the June 6, 1944, invasion of Nazi-occupied France with the world’s largest-ever sea, land and air armada. It punctured Adolf
RSS