Proof the casting couch not only exists but is still popular came from China this week. According to actress Zhang Yu (張鈺) it's difficult to get ahead in the film business unless you are intimately involved with the director. She even posted a video on the yoQoo.com Web site of Jing Hao (金浩) measuring up a starlet under the covers. Zhang has previously exposed directors for taking advantage of actresses and perhaps this is why she has had to resort to posting videos of herself on the Web dressed in pajamas.
Related news was disturbing fans of "Ice Cream" this week. They learned Lin Chih-lin (林志玲), which sounds like ice cream in Chinese, hence the nickname, was melting under the pressure after learning that sacrifices she made to secure a part in a Hollywood flick had come to naught, or very little. To get the role in John Woo's (吳宇森) Battle of Red Cliff (赤壁之戰) Lin jumped the director at a hotel in Shanghai. Thinking she would have to get on a horse for the film she took lessons to conquer her fear of riding, after suffering a serious fall last year. Then Chinese media criticized her for sounding like a doll, so she did voice training and can now approximate the sounds of a normal human being.
Despite Lin's hard work, Apple Daily revealed it has seen the script and her only role is to look pretty, pour tea and say two lines. The paper is calling this her "vase crisis." A vase, in Chinese, is slang for pretty but useless. Even so, Ice Cream's fans were not too worried. They knew she would be having a word in Woo's ear this week, as he is a guest at the 51st Asia-Pacific Film Festival in Taipei. Lin is also one of the hosts at the awards ceremony tonight, having secured insurance cover of NT$20 million for a risque routine. Lin will swing in the air, bend over backwards and do the splits, according to Apple. Woo has, perhaps, seen all this before, but if it doesn't move him then presumably nothing will.
Except, possibly, big breasts popping out of bras. Pan Wei-ru (潘慧如) has bounced back into the limelight after her modeling career hit the skids a year or so ago. Then, as if by magic, her bust increased two sizes, her nipples were photographed saying hello at a press conference and she made it onto the FHM magazine cover. She now hosts a TV program and is said to be dating a rich man. Surely, Apple demanded, this fairytale turnaround was due to surgery? They even showed her a picture from seven years ago with crew cut hair and no visible breasts, which seemed to confirm they arrived later. "Oh come on, I'm just pushing them up," she replied, admitting however that she had undergone "minor" surgery some time ago.
Other actresses/models in denial include Little S (小S), whose convoluted explanation for her bosom enlargement was that a doctor gave her medicine for pimples on her back and six months later a miracle occurred when she became a 32C.
Chen Yu-han (陳瑀涵) went from 32C to 34D after eight months of acupuncture and Chinese medicine. Amazingly she put on weight — all of it, apparently, where her breasts used to be. Not.
April 28 to May 4 During the Japanese colonial era, a city’s “first” high school typically served Japanese students, while Taiwanese attended the “second” high school. Only in Taichung was this reversed. That’s because when Taichung First High School opened its doors on May 1, 1915 to serve Taiwanese students who were previously barred from secondary education, it was the only high school in town. Former principal Hideo Azukisawa threatened to quit when the government in 1922 attempted to transfer the “first” designation to a new local high school for Japanese students, leading to this unusual situation. Prior to the Taichung First
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 —
The Ministry of Education last month proposed a nationwide ban on mobile devices in schools, aiming to curb concerns over student phone addiction. Under the revised regulation, which will take effect in August, teachers and schools will be required to collect mobile devices — including phones, laptops and wearables devices — for safekeeping during school hours, unless they are being used for educational purposes. For Chang Fong-ching (張鳳琴), the ban will have a positive impact. “It’s a good move,” says the professor in the department of
Toward the outside edge of Taichung City, in Wufeng District (霧峰去), sits a sprawling collection of single-story buildings with tiled roofs belonging to the Wufeng Lin (霧峰林家) family, who rose to prominence through success in military, commercial, and artistic endeavors in the 19th century. Most of these buildings have brick walls and tiled roofs in the traditional reddish-brown color, but in the middle is one incongruous property with bright white walls and a black tiled roof: Yipu Garden (頤圃). Purists may scoff at the Japanese-style exterior and its radical departure from the Fujianese architectural style of the surrounding buildings. However, the property
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