For Lin Shao-hua (林少華), the strenuous physical training over the last two months all became worthwhile when he was named first runner-up in the “Mister Physique” category in the annual 2008 Manhunt International last Monday.
Lin, a 25 year-old gym instructor from the Atayal tribe, was the third Taiwanese man to win a prestigious award at an international male beauty contest.
Lin said yesterday that when contenders from other countries first saw him, they often mistook him as Latin American because of his sculpted muscles and tanned skin.
PHOTO: HSIEH WEN-HUA, TAIPEI TIMES
“When I said I am from Taiwan, they often found it surprising,” Lin said, “because many foreigners still have the stereotype that Taiwanese male models are often tall, skinny and pale.”
Two months prior to the competition, Lin trained for three hours each day and maintained a strict high-protein low carbohydrate diet. To burn the extra fat off his body, Lin said he often did his jogging routine wearing heavy jackets and long pants so he would “sweat it out.”
Lin said he was able to shed 10kg using his self-designed regimen.
Manhunt International is the largest male-model beauty pageant in the world. The competition is made up of two phases. An online contest was held for voting on all contenders.
The top 15 winners from the online competition were then eligible to participate in the on-stage competition.
Lin did not get any votes at first, but won more than 23,900 votes and placed seventh after the Chinese-language Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister paper) reported on his endeavor to win the competition.
A senior at Yuan Ze University, Hsu Poh-hsiang (�?�), won the “best newcomer and best traditional costume” award in last year’s International Man Competition, and Hung Chi-feng (洪啟峰) of the National Taiwan University of Science and Technology, clinched the “Most Popular” award in the 2008 Mr. Universe Model competition.
Hsu, however, refused to accept his award because organizers tried to force him to participate as “Mr. China” instead of “Mr. Republic of China.”
A subsidiary of a Hong Kong-based company that has lost control of two critical ports on the Panama Canal said it is seeking US$2 billion of compensation in damages from Panama over its “illegal” takeover of the ports. Panama Ports Co, a unit of Hong Kong’s CK Hutchison Holdings (長江和記實業), on Friday said in a statement that it is demanding the sum under international arbitration proceedings that it had already started. The Panamanian government last week seized control of the Balboa and Cristobal ports on each end of the Panama Canal, after the country’s Supreme Court declared earlier that a concession allowing
DETERRENCE: With 1,000 indigenous Hsiung Feng II and III missiles and 400 Harpoon missiles, the nation would boast the highest anti-ship missile density in the world With Taiwan wrapping up mass production of Hsiung Feng II and III missiles by December and an influx of Harpoon missiles from the US, Taiwan would have the highest density of anti-ship missiles in the world, a source said yesterday. Taiwan is to wrap up mass production of the indigenous anti-ship missiles by the end of year, as the Chungshan Institute of Science and Technology has been meeting production targets ahead of schedule, a defense official with knowledge of the matter said. Combined with the 400 Harpoon anti-ship missiles Taiwan expects to receive from the US by 2028, the nation would have
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
RSS