When Tourism Bureau Director-General Janice Lai (
"Allow me to keep it a secret for now," she told reporters at the time. "Let me just say that it is going to be a male entertainer and a female singer. I promise it will be a huge surprise!"
But what was meant to be a surprise turned into an unexpected cat-out-of-bag incident. Lai was upset yesterday to find out that local media had unveiled the "secret" before she did.
A report in the Chinese-language Apple Daily yesterday said that Jolin Tsai (蔡依林), who won the Golden Melody Award for best female Mandarin pop singer last week, has been selected to be the bureau's new tourism spokesperson in Southeast Asia.
The report also mentioned that Tsai and film director Wu Nien-jen (
It also said that the bureau would pay Tsai NT$8 million (US$242,400) per year for the deal.
The bureau's contract with A-mei ended this year. During the past three years, the diva participated in tourism-related promotional events in Southeast Asia, from meeting with fans to leading them on an around-the-nation tour.
The momentum A-mei generated encouraged the Tourism Bureau to consider choosing another popular singer to be the new spokesperson this year.
Lai ordered her staff yesterday to investigate the leak and find out why the news was released to the media before the scheduled date, which was today.
The incident was reminiscent of the Golden Melody Awards' problems, as both events have had their lists of winners leaked to the media before the organizer could make an official announcement.
To increase tourism each year, the bureau has recruited popular idols as part of tourism promotion package. Last week, it announced that the boy-band F4 had become the bureau's emissaries in Japan and South Korea.
The inspection equipment and data transmission system for new robotic dogs that Taipei is planning to use for sidewalk patrols were developed by a Taiwanese company, the city’s New Construction Office said today, dismissing concerns that the China-made robots could pose a security risk. The city is bringing in smart robotic dogs to help with sidewalk inspections, Taipei Deputy Mayor Lee Ssu-chuan (李四川) said on Facebook. Equipped with a panoramic surveillance system, the robots would be able to automatically flag problems and easily navigate narrow sidewalks, making inspections faster and more accurate, Lee said. By collecting more accurate data, they would help Taipei
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A 72-year-old man in Kaohsiung was sentenced to 40 days in jail after he was found having sex with a 67-year-old woman under a slide in a public park on Sunday afternoon. At 3pm on Sunday, a mother surnamed Liang (梁) was with her child at a neighborhood park when they found the man, surnamed Tsai (蔡), and woman, surnamed Huang (黃), underneath the slide. Liang took her child away from the scene, took photographs of the two and called the police, who arrived and arrested the couple. During questioning, Tsai told police that he had met Huang that day and offered to
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