The controversy surrounding the high-profile "spring-autumn romance" (
Chao and Cheng's romance was first revealed by local media earlier this month. The story has since caught the public's attention and made headlines nationwide due to the age gap between the two.
To ease criticism, Chao, who runs a karaoke club in Hsintien (
Cheng's parents, relatives and neighbors, however, severely criticized Chao for "seducing" the boy.
"We would never allow our boy to marry a woman who is old enough to be his grandmother," Cheng's mother said repeatedly.
Meanwhile, according to other local media, Cheng married Chao right after Friday's call-in show in order to console her for being publicly humiliated by his family.
According to Cheng's parents, Chao has been a neighbor of theirs for years, and the whole neighborhood was shocked to learn that she'd become engaged to and has been living with Cheng. The two became engaged on March 9.
Cheng's parents also revealed on the call-in show that they have decided not to sue Chao because their son actually tried to commit suicide several times in order to stop them from bringing a lawsuit against her.
According to Chao, speaking after the call-in show, she felt deeply hurt both by Cheng's family and by TVBS, saying that they had been verbally attacked on the show by both family and studio audience alike.
Although the call-in show attracted very high ratings and was run twice again yesterday, many viewers strongly criticized TVBS' decision to air such a program.
According to Hu Yu-wei (胡幼偉), a professor of mass communication at National Taiwan Normal University, the romance is the couple's own business, and Taiwan's media should not use their affairs to increase its ratings.
"Obviously, the media only cared about its ratings," Hu commented yesterday.
CTW (時報週刊), a famous local weekly magazine, actually paid the two to take some wedding photos for the magazine last week, which seriously offended the boy's family.
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