Newsmaker-1: First daughter fights the limelight

Today, President Chen Shui-bian's (陳水扁) daughter Chen Hsing-yu (陳幸妤) is to get engaged, an event that some have heralded as a rare occasion for national celebration since Taiwan's transfer of political power over a year ago. But, Chen has not of late seemed as cheerful as one might expect a young woman making wedding plans to be.

What upsets her is not her fiance Chao Chien-min (趙建銘), but the media's round-the-clock monitoring and often negative coverage of her, which has enraged her on various occasions. Chen, 25, has been under the media spotlight since her father won the presidency on March 18 last year.

And her decision, just one year after her graduation from university, to walk down the aisle has taken many people by surprise.

An eager bride

One senior aide to the president believes that the likely reason why the first daughter is hurrying to get married is that she feels that by doing so she may be able to throw off some of the burdens of being a member of the first family.

"She seems very uncomfortable surrounded by the media and security guards -- even just for a short while," says the aide, "[and] she may think having a family of her own might get her out of the presidential residence so that she can lead her own life."

Several incidents lend weight to the aide's view.

At her graduation ceremony at National Yang Ming University (陽明大學) last June, Chen Hsing-yu, in her graduation gown, yelled at members of the media, "This is my graduation ceremony!" and hit a cameraman with her mortar board.

On April 16, an evening newspaper had a report of Chen's romance with a young doctor from National Taiwan University Hospital, Chao Chien-min, and Chen lost her temper while working at the Chang Gung Memorial Hospital (長庚醫院), then refusing to answer a telephone call from her mother, Wu Shu-chen (吳淑珍).

But after an hour-long discussion with relatives who visited the hospital to talk to her, Chen's attitude changed and she explained how she and Chao met and fell in love and shared her joy with reporters who packed the hospital hallway.

Han I-hsiung (韓毅雄), the NTU Hospital doctor who introduced Chao to Chen, said later that he and the first lady were surprised at Chen's changed attitude, after which she suddenly appeared much more mature.

But it was only a month later that the first daughter's anger was provoked again. In late May, while President Chen and the first lady were on their visit to Latin America, a newly-launched weekly magazine published a cover story about Chao's past romances.

There was even a rumor at the time that the reason Chen wanted to be married to Chao so soon was that she was already pregnant.

Temper, temper

Upon hearing the news on the morning of May 28, Chen unleashed a diatribe against the media, speaking uninterrupted for several minutes in front of the cameras.

"Don't you [reporters] have any brains? What the hell do you want?" she asked. The emotional scenes were broadcast repeatedly on TV over the next few days. Any joy about Chen's upcoming wedding seemed to have turned, for her at least, into unbearable anguish.

When Chen and Chao returned from a trip to Europe two days ago, she appeared annoyed and simply turned her back to the cameras when she spotted reporters waiting for her at the airport.

Is Chen a spoiled child? Let's consider another occasion.