The 25th Hong Kong Academy Awards handed out gongs to some teary and intoxicated winners last Saturday. Winning the Best Leading Actress award for Perhaps Love (如果愛), Chinese actress Zhou Xun (周迅) took to the stage in a flood of tears, giving thanks to her long-term lover, Taiwanese stylist Lee Da-chi (李大齊), for being a loving and forgiving partner.
Lee, the man behind the successful woman, designed the see-through black gown Zhou wore on the red carpet, which drew the media's attention away from other stars.
In contrast to Zhou's popularity, Zhang Ziyi (
Tony Leung Kar-fai (梁家輝) picked up the Best Leading Actor award. When asked if he saw the trophy as compensation for losing out at last year's Golden Horse Awards (金馬獎), the he struck a confident note by saying, "I totally deserve it."
Anthony Wong (黃秋生) was probably the most courteous among the award-receivers. For his second Best Supporting Actor award for Initial D (頭文字D) (he earned the first at the Golden Horse), Wong read out a long thank-you list that even included a friend who runs a pub for him in Taipei.
With a huge local fan base gained after her role in the South Korean comedy flick My Sassy Girl, South Korean actress Jeon Ji Hyun paid her third visit to Taipei last week to promote her latest film Daisy directed by Hong Kong's Andrew Lau (
Previously flayed by local media as being difficult and ice-cold, the 24-year-old beauty put on a friendly smile all the way from the airport into town in an attempt to save her plunging popularity in Taiwan.
Judging from the lack of fans at the airport the star will have to work her way up again.
Sony BMG brought together all its local big-name singers for a big-budget concert at Taipei Arena (
After reportedly turning down an offer from Wang to perform at the closing show, the has-been Mando-pop big shot spent NT$200,000 on a lavish hip-hop outfit to show the audience who was the queen of the night.
Local diva Shu Qi (
Plastic-surgery enthusiast Suzanne Hsiao (蕭淑慎) made it onto the gossip front page again when a series of photos showing her on an operating table undergoing liposuction were leaked to the press by an anonymous source.
The star firmly said she was unaware that photos had been taken, but the doctor who allegedly performed the surgery said she was perfectly aware of the presence of cameras.
The mystery was resolved when staff members from Web site company Yooler admitted the photos had been snappeds by them for a program they were working on. However, they denied any knowledge of how the photos ended up in the hands of the media.
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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