Once famous for his exploits on the basketball court, PFP Legislator Cheng Chih-lung (鄭志龍) is now making headlines for his increasingly public love life.
On July 24, his wife, Lu Tsu-ying (
TAIPEI TIMES FILE PHOTO
"Ah-lung and I worked very hard to manage our marriage and family, because we didn't want our children to walk down the same road that we've been through before. I feel very sad and helpless now that things are going against our wishes," Lu said in the letter.
Lu later relented, after Cheng begged for her forgiveness, and decided to give her husband another chance for the sake of their children.
Previous infidelity
Cheng is reported to have had four previous affairs, and a family friend said the onus is on the former basketball star to hold his 12-year-old marriage together.
"It is now up to Cheng to decide whether the acrimony in his marriage will end," said PFP Legislator Liu Wen-hsiung (
Cheng, 33, was already a popular idol for many Taiwanese teenagers, especially his female fans, when he joined the national basketball team at the age of 17.
But despite the attention, Cheng said he fell in love with Lu the first time he met her at a pub 12 years ago.
Lu was initially cautious about getting involved with Cheng because of his flamboyant love life, but changed her mind when she got to know his family background.
Broken families
"Just like Ah-lung, I've never met my father and know nothing about him. The feeling of [growing up] without a father narrowed the distance between myself and Ah-lung," Lu said in the preface of Cheng's biography published in 1996.
Cheng's father is from the US, while his mother is an aborigine from the Ami tribe. The two met in Taiwan but never married, and his father returned to the US before Cheng was born.
In the biography, Cheng vowed to put his past behind him to give his own children a traditional family upbringing.
"The past is not important to me any more now that I have my own family. The most important thing is to take good care of my family and give my two sons complete love," Cheng says.
But temptation has continued to hound Cheng, even after his marriage.
Lu recalls in his biography's preface an occasion when she went to watch her husband play basketball in Panchiao, Taipei County.
"When we were walking hand in hand out of the stadium after the game, a beautiful, long-haired girl blocked our way and said: `Come, Ah-lung, let's go have afternoon tea together,'" Lu said.
Temptation
Before the alleged affair with May Chin, Cheng is reported to have succumbed to temptation several times.
The last time was four years ago, when Cheng reportedly lived with a female fan in Tamshui, Taipei County, prompting Lu to threaten Cheng with separation.
She later forgave Cheng, following mediation by their friends, and did not use the media to make her dissatisfaction known.
But her recent attempt to bring her husband's indiscretions into the open suggests Cheng has few chances left to save his marriage.
Over the past two weeks, Cheng has tried to mend the relationship with his wife and has gone on an overseas trip with his family.
"What the couple needs the most is the support of the public," Liu said.
"We should give a man who is able to correct his mistakes and a brave woman a chance to regain peace and happiness in their family."
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods