Pop Stop reported last week that Zhang Ziyi (章子怡) was going to sue the Hong Kong edition of the Apple Daily, and its sister weekly Next Magazine, after both gossip rags said that she allegedly prostituted herself out to wealthy Chinese businessmen. Well, on Monday she made good on her word.
An article in the Apple last month alleged that Zhang “is a prostitute” and had sex with disgraced Chinese official Bo Xilai (薄熙來) and a wealthy associate for money, on numerous occasions, court documents showed.
The daily reported that the 33-year-old Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (臥虎藏龍) and Rush Hour 2 star had sex with other top Chinese officials and had amassed a whopping fortune of close to NT$3.3 billion (US$110 million) as a result. Though the original story was removed from the tabloid’s Web site following Monday’s suit, pretty much every other media outlet in Taiwan, Hong Kong and China continue to report on it.
Photo: Taipei Times
Meanwhile, Chinese actress Fang Bingbing (范冰冰) has sued renowned Chinese playwright and film critic Bi Chenggong (畢成功) and a Guizhou-based news blog over allegations that she was the “mastermind” behind the Zhang sex scandal rumors.
Bi made a post on his microblog that suggested Fang was a notorious rabble rouser and had planned for months to spread the rumors before the release of Dangerous Liaisons (危險關係), a film starring Zhang that was shown at the Cannes Film Festival last month. Netizens speculated that the rumors were behind her absence from the festival.
Repeatedly denying the rumors, Fang has filed a defamation suit against Bi to the tune of NT$2.5 million.
Photo: Taipei Times
While some of Asia’s celebutantes are fighting off rumors of sexual impropriety (surprise, surprise), others are fighting off overzealous fans. S.H.E member Ella Chen (陳嘉樺) was stabbed by a female fan in France last week, reported the United Daily News.
The recently married Chen was in Paris with her cosmetics executive husband Alvin Lai (賴斯翔), who was on a business trip, when a fan approached the 30 year old while posting pictures of her trip on her Facebook account in a cafe.
The “lunatic,” as the popular singer later said, got angry when Chen refused to give her an interview or sign autographs, and lunged at her with a pen, stabbing her in the chest. She then drew on Chen’s left arm.
But Chen took it in her stride. Though shaken by the incident, warning other celebrities to “be careful,” she still took time out to meet up with fans for a photo session.
Crazy fans are something Jolin Tsai (蔡依林) knows something about. After arriving at an airport in Chongqing, China at the end of last month on her way to Beijing, the pop diva was accosted by an overzealous male fan.
“Jolin Tsai, I love you,” he bellowed as he attempted to wrap his arms around the songstress, according to NOWnews.
Though other assembled fans were clearly peeved by the fanboys’ presumptuous behavior, Tsai for her part laughed off the “attack.”
She was later quoted as saying that she was less concerned for her safety than the fan being blacklisted by other fans.
Meanwhile, the vernacular media have been reporting the possibility that bible-thumping chick magnet Van Ness Wu (吳建豪) might be getting hitched to on-again-off-again girlfriend Arissa Cheo (姚之寧).
The couple first hooked up in 2006 when Cheo helped Wu film a music video, but amicably broke up a year later. After getting back together in 2010, Wu allegedly proposed, only to be rebuffed by the Singaporean sweetheart’s parents because of his job as entertainer.
NOWnews reported that Wu had finally proposed to Cheo at the end of last month in Singapore. But he put the kibosh on the rumors this week.
“I’ll share the good news when it comes,” he said in a statement.
Sept.16 to Sept. 22 The “anti-communist train” with then-president Chiang Kai-shek’s (蔣介石) face plastered on the engine puffed along the “sugar railway” (糖業鐵路) in May 1955, drawing enthusiastic crowds at 103 stops covering nearly 1,200km. An estimated 1.58 million spectators were treated to propaganda films, plays and received free sugar products. By this time, the state-run Taiwan Sugar Corporation (台糖, Taisugar) had managed to connect the previously separate east-west lines established by Japanese-era sugar factories, allowing the anti-communist train to travel easily from Taichung to Pingtung’s Donggang Township (東港). Last Sunday’s feature (Taiwan in Time: The sugar express) covered the inauguration of the
The corruption cases surrounding former Taipei Mayor and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) head Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) are just one item in the endless cycle of noise and fuss obscuring Taiwan’s deep and urgent structural and social problems. Even the case itself, as James Baron observed in an excellent piece at the Diplomat last week, is only one manifestation of the greater problem of deep-rooted corruption in land development. Last week the government announced a program to permit 25,000 foreign university students, primarily from the Philippines, Indonesia and Malaysia, to work in Taiwan after graduation for 2-4 years. That number is a
This year’s Michelin Gourmand Bib sported 16 new entries in the 126-strong Taiwan directory. The fight for the best braised pork rice and the crispiest scallion pancake painstakingly continued, but what stood out in the lineup this year? Pang Taqueria (胖塔可利亞); Taiwan’s first Michelin-recommended Mexican restaurant. Chef Charles Chen (陳治宇) is a self-confessed Americophile, earning his chef whites at a fine-dining Latin-American fusion restaurant. But what makes this Xinyi (信義) spot stand head and shoulders above Taipei’s existing Mexican offerings? The authenticity. The produce. The care. AUTHENTIC EATS In my time on the island, I have caved too many times to
Many Taiwanese have a favorable opinion of Japan, in part because Taiwan’s former colonial master is seen as having contributed a great deal to the development of local industries, transportation networks and institutions of education. Of course, the island’s people were never asked if they wanted to be ruled by Tokyo or participate in its modernization plans. From their arrival in 1895 until at least 1902, the Japanese faced widespread and violent antagonism. Things then calmed down, relatively speaking. Even so, between 1907 and 1916 there were eleven anti-Japanese revolts. A map in the National Museum of Taiwan History (國立臺灣歷史博物館)