Weed users beware: it may be a wise time to drop your unlawful hobby because the hunt is on for secret tokers. The long arm of the law has already caught up with a group of pop star suspects, which could spell the end of their careers.
The saga began with a successful police raid on a luxury apartment in Taipei last month that uncovered a marijuana growing operation. Police trawled the phone records of the people involved and turned up the names of alleged buyers including TV show hosts Tuo Tsung-kang (庹宗康), Chu Chung-heng (屈中恆) and the paparazzi's favorite prey Suzanne Hsiao (蕭淑慎).
After first denying the charge, Tuo and Chu held press conferences on Sunday, admitting they had smoked joints out of curiosity once but hadn't scored off the apartment's owner. Cracking under the pressure of intense media scrutiny, the pair blubbered on screen and issued apologies, the move, however, failed to prevent them from being booted off most of the TV shows they hosted and losing lucrative product endorsements.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
Police said urine tests indicate that three suspects had consumed cannabis within the last two months but declined to make public their names. More accurate results, taken from hair samples, will come out next week.
In the meantime, the entertainment clique closed ranks with several celebrities voicing support for the accused. "Is smoking pot really such a serious crime?" asked ABT pop star Stanley Huang (黃立行), who later watered down his comments by advising dope smokers to respect the law here and only smoke in places where their pastime is legal.
Another ABT stud Wang Lee-hom (王力宏), on the other hand, always knows how to play it safe with his squeaky clean image, which has earned him endorsement and contract fees this year totaling some NT$288 million. Wang reigns supreme at the top of the Chinese-language media's list of top pop singer earners. Jolin Tsai (蔡依林) came in second with NT$285 million, while her ex-lover Chairman Chou (周董) flagged behind with NT$240 million.
Though it's been three years since Elva Hsiao (蕭亞軒) released her last record, the former Mando-pop queen is attempting to reclaim her title with a new album, 1087, set for release on Dec. 22.
As a warm-up before the big day, Hsiao gave a sweaty performance at the Channel V-organized concert at Zhongshan Soccer Stadium (中山足球場) last Saturday. To make sure she could hog all the limelight, Hsiao arranged to perform with her past rumored lovers Edison Chen (陳冠希) and Stanley Huang. And guess what, the tactic worked as the man magnet's previous flings dominated gossip rags the next day.
Thanks to advances in aesthetic medicine, age-resistant Carina Lau (劉嘉玲) looked fresh and dazzling when celebrating her 42-year-old birthday last week, first with her entrepreneur friend Jack Sun (孫道存) and later with her "good friend" [a code name for rumored lover] Chinese actor Hu Jun (胡軍), while her decade-long sweetheart Tony Leung (梁朝偉) has lost nearly 10kg shooting Ang Lee's (李安) Lust, Caution (色戒) and is too busy to buy her a proper gift.
Perhaps Leung, who was once romantically linked to Maggie Cheung (張曼玉) during his relationship with Lau, is the best present himself as the poised star is reportedly never troubled by Lau's rumored flings with her numerous pursuers.
The breakwater stretches out to sea from the sprawling Kaohsiung port in southern Taiwan. Normally, it’s crowded with massive tankers ferrying liquefied natural gas from Qatar to be stored in the bulbous white tanks that dot the shoreline. These are not normal times, though, and not a single shipment from Qatar has docked at the Yongan terminal since early March after the Strait of Hormuz was shuttered. The suspension has provided a realistic preview of a potential Chinese blockade, a move that would throttle an economy anchored by the world’s most advanced and power-hungry semiconductor industry. It is a stark reminder of
May 11 to May 17 Traversing the southern slopes of the Yushan Range in 1931, Japanese naturalist Tadao Kano knew he was approaching the last swath of Taiwan still beyond colonial control. The “vast, unknown territory,” protected by the “fierce” Bunun headman Dahu Ali, was “filled with an utterly endless jungle that choked the mountains and valleys,” Kano wrote. He noted how the group had “refused to submit to the measures of our authorities and entrenched themselves deep in these mountains … living a free existence spent chasing deer in the morning and seeking serow in the evening,” even describing them as
The last couple of weeks spectators in Taiwan and abroad have been treated to a remarkable display of infighting in the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) over the supplementary defense budget. The party has split into two camps, one supporting an NT$800 billion special defense budget and one supporting an NT$380 billion budget with additional funding contingent on receiving letters of acceptance (LOA) from the US. Recent media reports have said that the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) is leaning toward the latter position. President William Lai (賴清德) has proposed NT$1.25 trillion for purchases of US arms and for development of domestic weapons
As a different column was being written, the big news dropped that Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁) announced that negotiations within his caucus, with legislative speaker Han Kuo-yu (韓國瑜) of the KMT, party Chair Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文), Taichung Mayor Lu Shiow-yen (盧秀燕) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) Chair Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) had produced a compromise special military budget proposal. On Thursday morning, prior to meeting with Cheng over a lunch of beef noodles, Lu reiterated her support for a budget of NT$800 or NT$900 billion — but refused to comment after the meeting. Right after Fu’s
RSS