Is there a community standard dictating how low pants can ride before they become indecent? Next Magazine (
Speaking of plumbers and not wearing underwear, A-hsian (
The path from smut to stardom is a well-worn one in Taiwan, having been taken by such stars as Shu Qi (舒淇) and Vivian Hsu (徐若瑄), the latter of whom said Saturday on the SET TV show Cover Person (封面人物) that she had no regrets about shooting a nude photo book 10 years ago. She also said on the show that her only true love has been the Japanese rock star Sugizo. Of her previous liaisons with the Japanese singer Gackt and Jay Chou (周杰倫), she said they were all just friends.
TAIPEI TIMES FILE PHOTO
Gackt and Vivian had a chance to see each other again last Saturday at Lee Hom Wang's (王力宏) concert, which went off without a hitch and was attended by about 20,000 screaming teenage girls and a few dozen boys, give or take a few. After eight years in the public view as a singer and heart-throb, this was Lee Hom's first headlining concert, so he came out strong playing guitar, piano, drums and rapping to prove his mettle as more than just another pretty face.
The other big show last weekend was the one in front of the Presidential Office for Double Ten Day. Shunza (順子), as a Golden Melody Award winner, was one of the most anticipated acts, but once onstage she made an ass of herself by singing off key and forgetting even the words to her own hit song Come Home (回家). The Apple Daily (
Fans of Wang Kar-wai (王家衛) will have to keep waiting for his next movie to finally come out. The film, titled 2046, was set to continue shooting last week in Shanghai, but for reasons unannounced, was postponed. Tetsuya Kimura (木村拓哉), the Japanese actor starring in the movie, had come all the way from Japan for the shoot, but ended up going home the next day with agents saying it was because he was sick. The suspicion, though, is that Tetsuya left in disgust when the filming was delayed at the last minute.
TAIPEI TIMES FILE PHOTO
In the March 9 edition of the Taipei Times a piece by Ninon Godefroy ran with the headine “The quiet, gentle rhythm of Taiwan.” It started with the line “Taiwan is a small, humble place. There is no Eiffel Tower, no pyramids — no singular attraction that draws the world’s attention.” I laughed out loud at that. This was out of no disrespect for the author or the piece, which made some interesting analogies and good points about how both Din Tai Fung’s and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) meticulous attention to detail and quality are not quite up to
April 21 to April 27 Hsieh Er’s (謝娥) political fortunes were rising fast after she got out of jail and joined the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in December 1945. Not only did she hold key positions in various committees, she was elected the only woman on the Taipei City Council and headed to Nanjing in 1946 as the sole Taiwanese female representative to the National Constituent Assembly. With the support of first lady Soong May-ling (宋美齡), she started the Taipei Women’s Association and Taiwan Provincial Women’s Association, where she
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) hatched a bold plan to charge forward and seize the initiative when he held a protest in front of the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office. Though risky, because illegal, its success would help tackle at least six problems facing both himself and the KMT. What he did not see coming was Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (將萬安) tripping him up out of the gate. In spite of Chu being the most consequential and successful KMT chairman since the early 2010s — arguably saving the party from financial ruin and restoring its electoral viability —
It is one of the more remarkable facts of Taiwan history that it was never occupied or claimed by any of the numerous kingdoms of southern China — Han or otherwise — that lay just across the water from it. None of their brilliant ministers ever discovered that Taiwan was a “core interest” of the state whose annexation was “inevitable.” As Paul Kua notes in an excellent monograph laying out how the Portuguese gave Taiwan the name “Formosa,” the first Europeans to express an interest in occupying Taiwan were the Spanish. Tonio Andrade in his seminal work, How Taiwan Became Chinese,
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