Pop sensations Mayday (五月天) were edging closer this week to breaking the record for the most attended concert at Taipei Municipal Stadium, having already sold 35,000 tickets by the end of last week. The current record of 40,000 was set by the king of pop himself Michael Jackson and hasn't been approached in years. Given the frantic hype surrounding tomorrow's much anticipated concert, Mayday looks as though they're well on their way to shattering the record. Helping them out in the process will be their label Rock Records, which has chartered busses to bring in fans from down south. For information on how to catch the bus, call (02) 2651-8168.
Preparations for the show have become increasingly extravagant in recent days, as the stage was expanded, the band's two guitarists blew NT$200,000 online to buy six new guitars specially for the show and Rock Records acquired a Swan Lake ballet tutu which drummer Yan Ming (
Yan's tutu gag probably won't go over as well as Korean transvestite He Li-hsiu's (
Another lady with luscious lips and an apparently big mouth is Taiwanese transplant to Hong Kong Shu Qi (舒淇). Last week the starlet revealed the name of a mystery shampoo company for whom she had made advertisements before the ads were released, causing a furor with the ad agency and throwing a spanner in the works of the ad campaign, as well as putting into question any future deals between the actress and the company.
On a campaign of a different sort, but also geared toward securing more money for stars, Sun Yanzi (孫燕姿) has encoded her newest album The Moment with anti-pirating technology to prevent her music from making it onto the Internet as mp3 files. Following Madonna's example, Yanzi is also offering to sell B sides that didn't make it onto the album over the Net in advance of the album's release, which is set for next Friday.
That's about the same day that pint-sized rapper Maji (麻吉) should be heading back to the US to start the school year, if his father can pack him onto the plane, that is. It became know this week that young Maji is not the stellar student his father wishes he were, having gotten a D, a C, two Bs and only two As last semester. But after making a pretty strong run at becoming Taiwan's foremost hip-hop luminary, with a performance at the Golden Melody Awards two weeks ago, he has since been quoted refusing to return to the States (while stomping his feet and flailing his arms). He even somehow misplaced his passport -- accidentally, of course.
In Taiwan’s politics the party chair is an extremely influential position. Typically this person is the presumed presidential candidate or serving president. In the last presidential election, two of the three candidates were also leaders of their party. Only one party chair race had been planned for this year, but with the Jan. 1 resignation by the currently indicted Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) two parties are now in play. If a challenger to acting Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) appears we will examine that race in more depth. Currently their election is set for Feb. 15. EXTREMELY
Last week saw the appearance of another odious screed full of lies from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Ambassador to Australia, Xiao Qian (肖千), in the Financial Review, a major Australian paper. Xiao’s piece was presented without challenge or caveat. His “Seven truths on why Taiwan always will be China’s” presented a “greatest hits” of the litany of PRC falsehoods. This includes: Taiwan’s indigenous peoples were descended from the people of China 30,000 years ago; a “Chinese” imperial government administrated Taiwan in the 14th century; Koxinga, also known as Cheng Cheng-kung (鄭成功), “recovered” Taiwan for China; the Qing owned
Jan. 20 to Jan. 26 Taipei was in a jubilant, patriotic mood on the morning of Jan. 25, 1954. Flags hung outside shops and residences, people chanted anti-communist slogans and rousing music blared from loudspeakers. The occasion was the arrival of about 14,000 Chinese prisoners from the Korean War, who had elected to head to Taiwan instead of being repatriated to China. The majority landed in Keelung over three days and were paraded through the capital to great fanfare. Air Force planes dropped colorful flyers, one of which read, “You’re back, you’re finally back. You finally overcame the evil communist bandits and
They increasingly own everything from access to space to how we get news on Earth and now outgoing President Joe Biden warns America’s new breed of Donald Trump-allied oligarchs could gobble up US democracy itself. Biden used his farewell speech to the nation to deliver a shockingly dark message: that a nation which has always revered its entrepreneurs may now be at their mercy. “An oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms,” Biden said. He named no names, but his targets were clear: men like Elon Musk
RSS