As anyone with even the most superficial understanding of Taiwan will know, cuteness rules. Evidence of this simple truth is seen in the accessories hanging from most people's mobile phones and the popularity of Hello Kitty products at 7-Eleven.
The new Queen of Cute is undoubtedly Rainie Yang (楊丞琳), the singer (of sorts) and variety show TV host. Her greatest asset, however, is a baby-doll face that has earned her over NT$10 million in endorsements. Ads featuring just her visage have included those for fruit tea, yogurt, silver pendants, earrings, hair products, contact lenses and most recently an electric toothbrush.
A Chinese-language daily reported this week that she earns up to NT$3 million for each promotion and estimated that her face will earn NT$15 million by the end of the year.
PHOTOS: TAIPEI TIMES
This is serious cash for someone who is most famous for pursing her lips and looking like a squirrel. But to be fair to the 22-year-old signed by music giant Sony BMG, she has changed the cultural landscape.
Before Yang there was just ke ai (可愛), or cute. But since Yang has reigned zhuang ke ai (裝可愛), or “fake cute” has become the pop norm for aspiring starlets. To achieve this look try looking like a frightened animal and pronounce ke ai as kou ai (口愛).
The former queen of cuteness, Jolin Tsai (蔡依林), this week paid US dance instructor Link the princely sum of NT$1 million for three days work to ensure she's in shape for her upcoming concerts in Hong Kong.
Local gossip rags also reported that her record company has insured her pins for NT$50 million. Pop Stop guesses they won't be wishing her luck in Hong Kong with the traditional saying, “Break a leg.”
Someone in need of a break this week is Cyndi Wang (王心凌), who has been mercilessly slated for her acting in the soap opera Pasta. Over the weekend Wang popped on a baseball cap and went to Taipei's Xingtian Temple (行天宮) to pray for good reviews and the arrival of “Mr. Right” in her life.
This trick worked once before. Before the release of her debut album, which sold a respectable 100,000 units, she took time out from her promotional schedule to pray for success at a temple in Penghu. The Gods may have smiled on her then, but on this occasion the press pack related that she entered and exited the temple from the left side, rather than leaving stage right, as suggested by temple staff. Having missed her cue, they conjectured, the Gods may not look so favorably on her plight this time.
Finally, some good news for follicly challenged young men. Asia's top stud muffin, the immaculate Rain appears to be losing his crowning glory. On his visit to Taipei in April this year some scribes remarked on what appeared to be his receding hairline.
A recent shot of the South Korean singer and actor at the poolside indulging his passion for dried noodle snacks got the commentators going again. They brought up the case of a 29-year-old Taiwanese who was said by skin specialists to have lost his hair because he ate only instant noodles for a year.
Rain, they opined, should give up his noodle munchies to avoid a similar fate.
Nine Taiwanese nervously stand on an observation platform at Tokyo’s Haneda International Airport. It’s 9:20am on March 27, 1968, and they are awaiting the arrival of Liu Wen-ching (柳文卿), who is about to be deported back to Taiwan where he faces possible execution for his independence activities. As he is removed from a minibus, a tenth activist, Dai Tian-chao (戴天昭), jumps out of his hiding place and attacks the immigration officials — the nine other activists in tow — while urging Liu to make a run for it. But he’s pinned to the ground. Amid the commotion, Liu tries to
The slashing of the government’s proposed budget by the two China-aligned parties in the legislature, the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP), has apparently resulted in blowback from the US. On the recent junket to US President Donald Trump’s inauguration, KMT legislators reported that they were confronted by US officials and congressmen angered at the cuts to the defense budget. The United Daily News (UDN), the longtime KMT party paper, now KMT-aligned media, responded to US anger by blaming the foreign media. Its regular column, the Cold Eye Collection (冷眼集), attacked the international media last month in
Feb. 10 to Feb. 16 More than three decades after penning the iconic High Green Mountains (高山青), a frail Teng Yu-ping (鄧禹平) finally visited the verdant peaks and blue streams of Alishan described in the lyrics. Often mistaken as an indigenous folk song, it was actually created in 1949 by Chinese filmmakers while shooting a scene for the movie Happenings in Alishan (阿里山風雲) in Taipei’s Beitou District (北投), recounts director Chang Ying (張英) in the 1999 book, Chang Ying’s Contributions to Taiwanese Cinema and Theater (打鑼三響包得行: 張英對台灣影劇的貢獻). The team was meant to return to China after filming, but
Power struggles are never pretty. Fortunately, Taiwan is a democracy so there is no blood in the streets, but there are volunteers collecting signatures to recall nearly half of the legislature. With the exceptions of the “September Strife” in 2013 and the Sunflower movement occupation of the Legislative Yuan and the aftermath in 2014, for 16 years the legislative and executive branches of government were relatively at peace because the ruling party also controlled the legislature. Now they are at war. The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) holds the presidency and the Executive Yuan and the pan-blue coalition led by the