The tragic death of Beatrice Hsu (許瑋倫), a model and actress, has dominated TV and newspaper coverage this week. The Golden Bell nominee died after her car smashed into a barrier on the highway between Taichung and Taipei. The Mini Cooper span into the path of a truck and was crushed. Though Hsu was rescued from the wreckage she was in a coma and later died in hospital. Her young assistant was said to have been driving fast in a haphazard fashion, but unlike her passenger reportedly wore a seatbelt and received only minor injuries. As of press time, she was in a state of severe mental trauma and still believes Hsu is alive.
It seems the country has entered into a state of collective grief similar, perhaps, to that experienced in Britain when its Diana, Princess of Wales, died in a car crash 10 years ago. Every hour 23.5 people are maimed or killed as a result of a traffic accidents in Taiwan, according to figures from the Directorate-General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics (主計處). But the death of a young woman with a high media profile elicits almost universal sympathy, as if she died to save us all. There will be a public funeral and concert for Hsu on Feb. 10.
It's been said before but that's not going to stop us repeating it. There's one rule for the rich and another for the poor. While the two men suspected in the Group 4 Securicor-Taiwan heist of NT$56 million were swiftly apprehended in China and repatriated to face justice, along with their accomplices in Taiwan; former Rebar Asia Pacific Group (力霸亞太企業集團) Chairman Wang You-theng (王又曾) and fourth wife (四房) Wang Chin She-ying (王金世英) got away with an estimated NT$10 billion and are currently enjoying the American Dream. Wang also managed to get away with having four wives and numerous affairs, according to the Apple Daily, which added the 79-year-old's vigor was due to a breakfast regimen of swallow's nest soup. This is basically bird spit from an endangered species and one of the most expensive foods on the planet.
Among Wang's playmates was the 36-year-old "entertainer" Tsai Chia-hung (蔡佳宏), who last week called her former lover a "vicious demon," presumably because he didn't make her wife number five. Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned, but the vamp relented slightly on the weekend when she called a press conference to inform the world she "bore no hatred" toward Wang. No doubt she was reminded that Wang had arranged NT$10 million in loans for her to buy a luxury apartment and showered her with NT$8 million in gifts, including a Mercedes Benz and at least 30 Chanel purses and 20 pairs of Chanel shoes. Tsai admitted to being depressed after the affair ended, not because she missed the man, but because she had to sell so many of her Chanel goodies. She is currently earning a crust singing at weddings.
Talking of "spirited foxes" (狐狸精), as such women are known in Chinese society, Chu Mei-feng (璩美鳳) recently turned up in Taipei for the first time in five years. The youngest Taipei City councilwoman and former TV anchor was the unpixellated focus of one of the steamiest sex scandals ever in Taiwan when she was filmed flagrantly disporting herself with another woman's husband. She has been living in London and running a coffee shop according to Next Magazine, which reported that she was running out of money. In a week the minx collected a cool NT$800,000 making the rounds of entertainment shows. Tsai, no doubt, was taking notes.
Cheng Ching-hsiang (鄭青祥) turned a small triangle of concrete jammed between two old shops into a cool little bar called 9dimension. In front of the shop, a steampunk-like structure was welded by himself to serve as a booth where he prepares cocktails. “Yancheng used to be just old people,” he says, “but now young people are coming and creating the New Yancheng.” Around the corner, Yu Hsiu-jao (饒毓琇), opened Tiny Cafe. True to its name, it is the size of a cupboard and serves cold-brewed coffee. “Small shops are so special and have personality,” she says, “people come to Yancheng to find such treasures.” She
The low voter turnout for the referendum on Aug. 23 shows that many Taiwanese are apathetic about nuclear energy, but there are long-term energy stakes involved that the public needs to grasp Taiwan faces an energy trilemma: soaring AI-driven demand, pressure to cut carbon and reliance on fragile fuel imports. But the nuclear referendum on Aug. 23 showed how little this registered with voters, many of whom neither see the long game nor grasp the stakes. Volunteer referendum worker Vivian Chen (陳薇安) put it bluntly: “I’ve seen many people asking what they’re voting for when they arrive to vote. They cast their vote without even doing any research.” Imagine Taiwanese voters invited to a poker table. The bet looked simple — yes or no — yet most never showed. More than two-thirds of those
In July of 1995, a group of local DJs began posting an event flyer around Taipei. It was cheaply photocopied and nearly all in English, with a hand-drawn map on the back and, on the front, a big red hand print alongside one prominent line of text, “Finally… THE PARTY.” The map led to a remote floodplain in Taipei County (now New Taipei City) just across the Tamsui River from Taipei. The organizers got permission from no one. They just drove up in a blue Taiwanese pickup truck, set up a generator, two speakers, two turntables and a mixer. They
Former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairwoman Hung Hsiu-chu’s (洪秀柱) attendance at the Chinese Communist Party’s (CPP) “Chinese People’s War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression and the World Anti-Fascist War” parade in Beijing is infuriating, embarrassing and insulting to nearly everyone in Taiwan, and Taiwan’s friends and allies. She is also ripping off bandages and pouring salt into old wounds. In the process she managed to tie both the KMT and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) into uncomfortable knots. The KMT continues to honor their heroic fighters, who defended China against the invading Japanese Empire, which inflicted unimaginable horrors on the
RSS