Little known, if not long forgotten, veteran singers Yu Guan-hua (
The media trailed the ex-couple for days, trying to squeeze the last drops of juice out of the story. Yet another example of newspapers squandering their human resources on stories about self-important celebrities that nobody really gives a damn about.
As for the Mando-pop scene, Jolin Tsai's (蔡依林) new album Dancing Diva (舞孃) got off to a shaky start. Struck down with gastroenteritis, the Mando-pop queen broke off her album-release press conference last week for a trip to the hospital, but she dutifully returned to finish her performance, which included demanding yoga positions and acrobatic moves.
The problems continued when the truck that had been converted into a mobile stage for Tsai's shows got stuck in traffic in Taipei during the weekend and was fined three times for violating traffic restrictions that ban large vehicles from the streets of the capital in the daytime.
The fine is unlikely to trouble Tsai's record company Capitol as it spent NT$3 million for the conversion, not to mention NT$35 million on producing Tsai's new album.
Ever since local femme fatale Lily Tien (田麗) took a swipe at actress Suzanne Hsiao (蕭淑慎) last year, criticizing the latter's wardrobe malfunction at the Golden Bell Awards (金鐘獎) and lambasting her side-dish sized breasts, while claiming hers are the real deal, the two stars have been on a hostile terms.
Last Friday, Hsiao invited the saucy Tien on to her new TV variety show Men, Women Do Not Care (男女別管) for a big reconcil-iation to boost viewer ratings.
Alas, the poignant memory of the cat fight was still too vivid for both parties. All out war was declared when Tien openly aired her contempt for Hsiao and the hostess returned fire. So it seems that the two women's battle over who has the more classy breasts will continue.
Contrary to the vanity of his female counterparts, Jerry Yan (
According to celebrity insiders, Yan wants to counter the humil-iation he suffered during an interview on the CNN program Talk Asia last month in which he was left embarrassingly mute and baffled while the other three band members talked fluently in English with host Lorraine Hahn.
As the old saying goes: no pain, no gain.
Entertainment talk-show host Mickey Huang (黃子佼) is down in the dumps lately. Depicted by local media as a lascivious middle-aged man for trying to steal Selina of girlband S.H.E away from her rumored sweetheart, singer and TV host Luo Zhi-xiang (羅志祥), Huang is said to have curried favor with her family by co-hosting a TV show with her father.
A disheartened Huang wrote a 3,000-word letter on his official Web site countering the malevolent accusation in mind-boggling detail. In an attempt to keep the fact-stretching press at arm's length, Huang changed his phone number and vowed never again to divulge details about his private life.
Taiwan’s English education system is being pulled apart by three opposing forces. Bilingual Nation 2030 pulls students toward English and global communication. Artificial Intelligence (AI) readiness pulls them toward digital judgment, verification and AI-mediated work. But Taiwan’s old exam culture pulls them back toward memorization, grammar drills, timed reading and correct answers. If the education system keeps using old exams to define success, it risks producing graduates who are neither genuinely bilingual nor genuinely AI-ready, but trained for tasks machines can already perform. The first force is Bilingual Nation 2030. Launched in 2018, the policy aimed to “help Taiwan’s workforce connect
It seems every few days one bumps into one of those “real man” comments in which Taiwan is urged to “face reality” or similar, and “make a deal,” with the speaker implying that soon it will be too late. “Deal” advocates always present themselves as having a superior grip on reality, and the manly ability to make the “hard choice.” Their testosterone-laden language often echoes that of Taiwan sellout advocates. Note that such commentary always specifies a process (“make a deal, work with, make progress”), never the end state of what occupation by a violent authoritarian colonialist state will entail. In
There are shadowy cabals plotting to sell out Taiwan to be annexed by China, by invasion if necessary. Fortunately, they are buffoons. In 2019, former Bamboo Union gangster and founder of the China Unification Promotion Party (CUPP), Chang An-le (張安樂, colorfully known as “White Wolf”), led a protest at the Legislative Yuan against comments made by then-premier Su Tseng-chang (蘇貞昌) that in the event of an attack by China, he would never surrender, but would protect the nation by fighting to the end, even if he only had a broom. Chang had party members bring a wooden casket that they
June 1 to June 7 "If all Taiwanese were as afraid of dying as you, then what would happen?” Physician Shih Chiang-nan (施江南) reportedly said this to his wife Chen Chiao-tung (陳焦桐) after she urged him to stop intervening on behalf of Taiwanese soldiers stranded overseas after serving in the Japanese Army during World War II. Shih had clashed with high-ranking officials over the issue, engaged in several heated arguments with Taiwan governor-general Chen Yi (陳儀) and allegedly shouted at general Ko Yuan-fen (柯遠芬), chief of staff of the Taiwan Garrison Command, over
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