The media has long been intrigued over the possibility of a rekindled romance between the nation’s most famous heartthrob, Jerry Yan (言承旭), and its top female supermodel, Lin Chi-ling (林志玲).
Yan supposedly never got over Lin after they first broke up. Lin is said to have broken up with a previous suitor, Scott Chiu (邱士楷), the son of a toilet magnate, and has hinted to reporters that she still has a soft spot for Yan.
And now, recent comments by Lin’s father, Lin Fan-nan (林繁男), are fanning the flames once again. Interviewed by reporters at a charity auction, the elder Lin praised Yan as “the light of Taiwan” (台灣之光), referring to the actor/model’s popularity in Japan, which was underlined earlier this week when 8,000 fans in Tokyo showed up for a public stadium appearance by Yan.
Photo: Taipei Times
The Apple Daily asked if the elder Lin’s words could be taken as an endorsement — wouldn’t “the light of Taiwan” and Taiwan’s number one model make a perfect married couple?
But his answer was vague and circumspect. “You can’t talk about marriage just for the sake of it,” he said. “A wedding is a major event. The more friends you can make, the better.”
Yan and Lin Chih-ling do share one thing in common these days: they’re both getting big in Japan.
Lin, who is trying to jumpstart her acting career, reprised her role in John Woo’s Red Cliff (赤壁) for a Japanese-language stage production of the film, and has also been a growing presence in Japanese fashion advertising. As for Yan, he continues to milk the fame earned from his role 11 years ago in the TV drama Meteor Garden (流星花園). His appearance at the aforementioned event in Tokyo earned him a cool NT$25 million.
One actor that will not be raking in the cash this year is Ethan Ruan (阮經天). The 29-year-old star of the hit gangster movie Monga (艋舺) has started his compulsory military service, foregoing his normal NT$20 million in yearly earnings for the serviceman’s salary of NT$9,955 a month.
On Tuesday, Ruan, who completed basic training in Taichung last month, started at his post in New Taipei City, where he is serving as an office staffer for the New Taipei City Government’s Education Bureau. And naturally, the media were out in full force to document Ruan’s first day on the job.
As our sister paper, the Liberty Times put it, an “entourage comparable to that of the New Taipei City mayor” greeted Ruan outside his Taipei apartment as he got into a taxi en route to the bureau’s offices in Banciao.
Donning the standard uniform of a blue windbreaker, blue hat and blue slacks, Ruan only looked “half as handsome” as he normally does, the Liberty Times report noted.
Ruan adopted a serious tone when reporters cornered him during a free moment in Banciao. When asked how he would react if he ran into fans at the Education Bureau, Ruan replied, “For this one year, my work is to be a serviceman. If I run into fans, I will still concentrate on my work.”
That might be tough until the novelty of having a movie star working in a government office wears off. The Apple Daily reports that female bureau workers have been receiving requests from their friends to get Ruan’s autograph, while other office staff have taken the opportunity to have their photos taken with him (a request he obliged happily, says the Apple Daily).
Even his fellow conscripts find Ruan’s presence a bit surreal — one serviceman was quoted as saying that having conversations with Ruan “is like a dream, it’s a little weird.”
Although it looks like Ruan’s duties at the bureau will be mostly pen-pushing and making copies, one military staffer at the bureau said they are hoping he will agree to participate in anti-drug and anti-bullying campaigns in schools.
He will certainly have to be a good boy during the work week. A typical day’s work schedule for Ruan runs from 8am to 5:30pm with an hour and a half off for lunch. He then has an hour off for dinner before he has to check in at his dormitory in Banciao. According to the Apple Daily, he and his fellow conscripts are restricted from going to nightclubs and bars during the weekdays. But it’s a far cry from life in a prison: they are free to go home on the weekends.
He may not be able to burst the Linsanity bubble, but pop idol Jay Chou (周杰倫) is likely increasing his street cred with loyal fans, having just filmed his second commercial with LA Laker star Kobe Bryant for a popular soda drink. In the first commercial, the two battled it out on the basketball court. This time around Bryant joins “The Chairman” on stage, wielding a guitar. The clip can be viewed at bit.ly/xZ70tO.
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