Gay Talese, the US author of bestselling books about the Mafia, the New York Times and the sexual revolution, has a new interest: the Chinese women's soccer team.
Talese was in Taipei the other day to watch the Chinese team play against Taiwan's women's team over at the Chungshan Soccer Stadium. Before coming here, he was in China, watching the team play a few games in Beijing.
Over dinner one night with a Taipei Times writer, Talese wouldn't say if he was working on a book-in-progress or a long magazine article -- and insisted he was traveling on his own dime and with no contract in hand.
But he did say he was fascinated by the Chinese women's soccer team and the players who play for little pay and no advertising endorsements, in contrast to the US women's soccer team.
The 68-year-old Talese joked that because he has become a familiar figure to the Chinese players, they suspect he is with the CIA or some other intelligence-gathering organization in the US.
"Either that, or they think I'm a lunatic or some dirty old man," he said.
The always nattily attired Talese -- known in the US at the father of "New Journalism" -- stayed in a posh hotel suite while in Taipei and picked up the tab himself. Claiming that he has no advance for any book about the team, Talese insisted that he merely became curious about the Chinese team after seeing them on TV and decided to "follow them around" for a while to see if an idea for a book or magazine piece develops.
Kin and Gin's Taiwan connection
When centenarian Kin Narita, who charmed millions as one of the world's oldest twins, died the other day in Japan at the age of 107, many people in Taiwan remembered the famous twins' visit here five years ago. Kin and and her sister Gin (their names mean "gold" and "silver" in Japanese) obtained their first passports at the age of 102 after being invited to Taiwan in 1995.
Upon arrival in Taipei, they were greeted by more than 1,000 sets of twins participating in a Twins Day festival.
Kin and Gin gained international fame for their beaming smiles, enormous vitality and shared longevity.
Born in 1892, the Nagoya twins were "discovered" by the Japanese media in 1991 and quickly became national treasures.
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