Starting with Taiwan's "international top model" Lin Chi-ling (林志玲), who was in the news practically every day this summer despite her not having done anything newsworthy, local media have kicked up what it now refers to as a "model fever"(名模熱) that's sweeping across the land. But since poor Chi-ling has already been deemed cold toast, it's now open season on the rest of Taiwan's contingent of runway models to justify more pictures of beautiful women on their pages and on TV.
The two ladies who stumbled into the media crosshairs this time are Lei Hung (洪曉蕾) and Lin Chia-chi (林嘉綺). And Hung may have already emerged as the prime target, as evidenced by her being the cover story two weeks in a row in Next Magazine (壹週刊) -- last week for doing the "splits" with four rich old men, and this week for having taken half-naked glamor pictures 11 years ago when she was 18. The best that Chia-chi could offer in the way of salacious stories was her kissing her longtime boyfriend and, this was actually part of a headline in The Great Daily News (大成報), rubbing his back. Clearly, Chia-chi is not going to generate titillating headlines for long.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
Hung's agent, meanwhile, rose to the bait on Wednesday to denounce the publication of the old semi-nude photos and delivered a promise to sue the magazine, making sure that there will be more reports about Hung to come.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
Last Sunday having been Double Ten Day, the usual tension over who will be the lucky/daring person to take the stage in front of the Presidential Office to host the national day festivities was more muted than in previous years, presumably because the government has given up asking popular stars to take part. Much had also been made beforehand of the toning down of the celebrations' "Chineseness" and nowhere was that more apparent than in the final choice of variety show host Peng Chia-chia (澎恰恰) and the self-proclaimed sexy obasan Chen Mei-feng (陳美鳳) to serve as MCs. Both being local icons, especially for the 40-and-up crowd, they drove the point home that there's a new wind blowing through town.
And speaking of blowing wind, Lee Hom Wong (王力宏) spoke in rare harsh tones to the media this week for reporting on criticisms of a song he produced for A-mei's (阿妹) new album that described the track as sounding like a person on the toilet grunting and groaning. Lee Hom said he wanted artists to be respected and for media to avoid "low-class" criticisms that demean the artists and their producers.
In Hong Kong last week, pop singer Eason Chan (陳奕迅) became a father when his girlfriend gave birth to a healthy 3.5kg baby girl. The couple named the baby Constance. The two have been out of reach from the media, but friends have visited the new family and said Constance looks like the father, with one friend remarking the two were so similar that even the baby's farts sounded like the Eason's.
June 9 to June 15 A photo of two men riding trendy high-wheel Penny-Farthing bicycles past a Qing Dynasty gate aptly captures the essence of Taipei in 1897 — a newly colonized city on the cusp of great change. The Japanese began making significant modifications to the cityscape in 1899, tearing down Qing-era structures, widening boulevards and installing Western-style infrastructure and buildings. The photographer, Minosuke Imamura, only spent a year in Taiwan as a cartographer for the governor-general’s office, but he left behind a treasure trove of 130 images showing life at the onset of Japanese rule, spanning July 1897 to
One of the most important gripes that Taiwanese have about the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is that it has failed to deliver concretely on higher wages, housing prices and other bread-and-butter issues. The parallel complaint is that the DPP cares only about glamor issues, such as removing markers of Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) colonialism by renaming them, or what the KMT codes as “de-Sinification.” Once again, as a critical election looms, the DPP is presenting evidence for that charge. The KMT was quick to jump on the recent proposal of the Ministry of the Interior (MOI) to rename roads that symbolize
On the evening of June 1, Control Yuan Secretary-General Lee Chun-yi (李俊俋) apologized and resigned in disgrace. His crime was instructing his driver to use a Control Yuan vehicle to transport his dog to a pet grooming salon. The Control Yuan is the government branch that investigates, audits and impeaches government officials for, among other things, misuse of government funds, so his misuse of a government vehicle was highly inappropriate. If this story were told to anyone living in the golden era of swaggering gangsters, flashy nouveau riche businessmen, and corrupt “black gold” politics of the 1980s and 1990s, they would have laughed.
Imagine being able to visit a museum and examine up close thousand-year-old pottery, revel alone in jewelry from centuries past, or peer inside a Versace bag. Now London’s V&A has launched a revolutionary new exhibition space, where visitors can choose from some 250,000 objects, order something they want to spend time looking at and have it delivered to a room for a private viewing. Most museums have thousands of precious and historic items hidden away in their stores, which the public never gets to see or enjoy. But the V&A Storehouse, which opened on May 31 in a converted warehouse, has come up
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