Hong Kong's hottest couple Cecilia Cheung (張柏芝) and Nicholas Tse (謝霆鋒) dropped a bombshell last week by announcing they had secretly tied the knot in the Philippines. After years of wavering between Cheung and Wang Faye (王菲), the playboy quickly decided to end his bachelor life three months after the two got back together. Gossipmongers say the reason behind the quickie nuptials was because Cheung has a bun in the oven.
Friends, colleges and families all extended courteous congratulations to the two except for Cheung's unfailing admirer Jordan Chan (陳小春). When asked how he felt about the news, the pop star said in a begrudging tone, “when people get married, you have to congratulate them. What else do you expect me to do? Jump from a building?”
Tse's mother was deeply hurt and enraged since the wedding ceremony was so secret that even the bride and groom's parents didn't know about it. Gossip observers believe the mom's grief also stems from divinations made by fortune-tellers that point to Cheung as a jinx on the family and a source of bad luck for her son.
It seems that now her dream to marry a handsome man and start a family seems to have come true, Cheung is entering a new phase in life, joined by a mother-in-law who sees her as a thorn in her side.
While Hong Kong paparazzi were busy chasing the newlyweds, local hacks have been tailing the soon-to be-divorced couple Lily Tien (田麗) and Chen Ting-chung (陳定中), after Chen was caught by information-wired paparazzi spending four hours in a hotel room with a flight attendant in her early 20s last week.
News of Chen's clandestine love affairs came as a big surprise to local showbiz insiders as his wife, a surprisingly well-preserved actress who is always ready to dazzle with her femme fatale facade, had carefully crafted a public image of a happily married couple and had been lauded as an ideal wife who gave her man boundless freedom and an erotically-charged sexual life. When informed of the news by members of the local press last weekend, Tien was first taken aback but quickly composed herself and said, “I don't believe it but I will ask him about it. If it can't be solved, then we'll get divorced.”
Chen's alibi: the tryst was an innocent seafood feast in a hotel room with a long-legged beauty. Chen also revealed that he and his wife have been planning to divorce since last year and he will become single again before Christmas. “A battle is about to begin,” Chen said to the local press.
Since Chen is estimated to have assets of NT$400 million, the direct translation of the “battle” is a fight over alimony.
Pro-independence heavy-metal combo Chthonic (閃靈樂團) has quietly made a diplomatic move by releasing its second album in the US last week.
An English-language version of Seediq Bale (賽德克巴), the record take its lyrics from the legendary story of the heroic Seediq tribe that mounted an anti-Japanese revolt in 1930 that later became known as the Wushe incident (霧社事件).
Signed to the rock label Megaforce, the local black metal outfit is all set to woo crowds with their faces painted like the Eight Generals (八家將). The group goes on tour in the US early next year.
David Tao (陶吉吉), on the other hand, is a less music-driven musician who regularly dominates the gossip rags with his rapacious advances on young beauties. After commenting on his dinner dates with local supermodel Pai Hsin-huai (白歆惠) to the local press, the star was spotted last weekend doing the splits (劈腿) by getting cozy with a PR worker at a pub in Shanghai.
However, the swarm of paparazzi outside the pub alerted the star who then skillfully disengaged himself from the girl and was adroitly escorted out of the place by security guards.
Wooden houses wedged between concrete, crumbling brick facades with roofs gaping to the sky, and tiled art deco buildings down narrow alleyways: Taichung Central District’s (中區) aging architecture reveals both the allure and reality of the old downtown. From Indigenous settlement to capital under Qing Dynasty rule through to Japanese colonization, Taichung’s Central District holds a long and layered history. The bygone beauty of its streets once earned it the nickname “Little Kyoto.” Since the late eighties, however, the shifting of economic and government centers westward signaled a gradual decline in the area’s evolving fortunes. With the regeneration of the once
Even by the standards of Ukraine’s International Legion, which comprises volunteers from over 55 countries, Han has an unusual backstory. Born in Taichung, he grew up in Costa Rica — then one of Taiwan’s diplomatic allies — where a relative worked for the embassy. After attending an American international high school in San Jose, Costa Rica’s capital, Han — who prefers to use only his given name for OPSEC (operations security) reasons — moved to the US in his teens. He attended Penn State University before returning to Taiwan to work in the semiconductor industry in Kaohsiung, where he
In February of this year the Taipei Times reported on the visit of Lienchiang County Commissioner Wang Chung-ming (王忠銘) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and a delegation to a lantern festival in Fuzhou’s Mawei District in Fujian Province. “Today, Mawei and Matsu jointly marked the lantern festival,” Wang was quoted as saying, adding that both sides “being of one people,” is a cause for joy. Wang was passing around a common claim of officials of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and the PRC’s allies and supporters in Taiwan — KMT and the Taiwan People’s Party — and elsewhere: Taiwan and
Perched on Thailand’s border with Myanmar, Arunothai is a dusty crossroads town, a nowheresville that could be the setting of some Southeast Asian spaghetti Western. Its main street is the final, dead-end section of the two-lane highway from Chiang Mai, Thailand’s second largest city 120kms south, and the heart of the kingdom’s mountainous north. At the town boundary, a Chinese-style arch capped with dragons also bears Thai script declaring fealty to Bangkok’s royal family: “Long live the King!” Further on, Chinese lanterns line the main street, and on the hillsides, courtyard homes sit among warrens of narrow, winding alleyways and
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