Jacky Wu (吳宗憲), who's made a career as a TV comedian, dropped probably the biggest joke of his life last week when he announced his possible contention on an independent ticket for a legislative seat to represent Taipei's southern district in elections set for November. The only things holding him back at this stage, he told media this week, were his father's and wife's objections.
As for his colorful record of public philandering and most recently driving drunk without a license, these don't seem to raise any questions in his mind about possible doubts voters may have about his trustworthiness when it comes to formulating national policy and handling their tax money. In fact, he has a couple of policy ideas of his own. He's quoted as telling media that his first mission, if elected, will be to get all paparazzi kicked out of Taiwan, singling out Next Magazine (壹週刊) and Apple Daily (蘋果日報) as targets of his impending media purge.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
Part of what prompted his legislative bid is Jacky's current court case against a fan named Linda, who revealed an affair to Next Magazine, she alleges to have had with the TV host. So far, the case remains undecided, but if that one fails, there's always the one brought by his wife against Linda, who once wrote a song for pop singer Elva Hsiao (蕭亞軒), that accuses Linda of trying to harm the Wu family.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
This week Ella of the pop group S.H.E. spent several days refuting a report on a Chinese Web site that "revealed" that she was previously a boy until a sex change made her a girl. Responding to the minor storm kicked up over the report, she told the Liberty Times (自由時報): "Yeah, I'm a boy. Why don't I just pull it out right here and pee on the floor?" She was joking, of course, but the tom-boyish Ella has been deflecting rumors about her sexual orientation since the group was formed a couple years ago.
More sex organs were in the news this week when Hong Kong singer/actor Nicholas Tse (謝霆鋒) was reported to have had a diamond stud penis ring. In an odd echo of Ella's comment, Nicholas sarcastically quipped to The Great Daily News (
Tse is currently in Beijing on the set of Chen Kaige's (陳凱歌) next film The Promise (無極), which will also star his erstwhile lover Cecilia Cheung (張柏芝). According to the Taiwan Daily, Cheung will mark a first in her film career in this movie with two full nudity scenes that she insisted on filming herself instead of having a body double. Tse won't be the man shooting the nude scenes with Cheung, though. That task will fall on the broad, tanned shoulders of South Korean actor Jang Dong-kun (張東建) and Hiroyuki Sanada.
Last week, TV hostess Big S proved that it's not just poor people who play the lottery when she hit a jackpot worth NT$140,000. It wasn't the NT$900 million that was up for grabs, but it still made her feel rich enough to give assistants at the studio NT$20,000 and use the rest to take her long-time boyfriend Lan Cheng-long (
The depressing numbers continue to pile up, like casualty lists after a lost battle. This week, after the government announced the 19th straight month of population decline, the Ministry of the Interior said that Taiwan is expected to lose 6.67 million workers in two waves of retirement over the next 15 years. According to the Ministry of Labor (MOL), Taiwan has a workforce of 11.6 million (as of July). The over-15 population was 20.244 million last year. EARLY RETIREMENT Early retirement is going to make these waves a tsunami. According to the Directorate General of Budget Accounting and Statistics (DGBAS), the
Last week the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) announced that the legislature would again amend the Act Governing the Allocation of Government Revenues and Expenditures (財政收支劃分法) to separate fiscal allocations for the three outlying counties of Penghu, Kinmen and Matsu from the 19 municipalities on Taiwan proper. The revisions to the act to redistribute the national tax revenues were passed in December last year. Prior to the new law, the central government received 75 percent of tax revenues, while the local governments took 25 percent. The revisions gave the central government 60 percent, and boosted the local government share to 40 percent,
Many will be surprised to discover that the electoral voting numbers in recent elections do not entirely line up with what the actual voting results show. Swing voters decide elections, but in recent elections, the results offer a different and surprisingly consistent message. And there is one overarching theme: a very democratic preference for balance. SOME CAVEATS Putting a number on the number of swing voters is surprisingly slippery. Because swing voters favor different parties depending on the type of election, it is hard to separate die-hard voters leaning towards one party or the other. Complicating matters is that some voters are
Sept 22 to Sept 28 Hsu Hsih (許石) never forgot the international student gathering he attended in Japan, where participants were asked to sing a folk song from their homeland. When it came to the Taiwanese students, they looked at each other, unable to recall a single tune. Taiwan doesn’t have folk songs, they said. Their classmates were incredulous: “How can that be? How can a place have no folk songs?” The experience deeply embarrassed Hsu, who was studying music. After returning to Taiwan in 1946, he set out to collect the island’s forgotten tunes, from Hoklo (Taiwanese) epics to operatic
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