IS Spring Scream (春天吶喊) on steroids? The Kenting (墾丁) festival keeps getting bigger. The number of parties, bands and fans increases annually. As does the number of people caught for illegal possession of drugs. This year it was a record high of 120 people. Coincidence? Pop Stop thinks not and suggests if it wasn't for the large amount of recreational medicines available fewer people would be interested in the event. They would not be attracted by the yearly media blitz promising sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll and stop going. Eventually, fewer artists would turn up and the festival would become what it originally started out as: a small, underground music event on the beach with a few spliffs being handed round.
Taiwan's brightest stars are playing musical chairs. Jay Chou (周杰倫) has cut ties with the company that backed him eight years ago to become the top-selling Mando-pop artist he is today. The Chairman (周董) has dropped Alfa Music Company and is now chair of his own board. JVR Music has just one client so far, Chou. But since he's a one-man mini industry — with music publishing, performing, advertising and directing credits to his name — making money shouldn't be a problem in the near term. Beijing Morning Post reported that Alfa wasn't happy about the deal and may withdraw the singer's songs from its KTV venues, Holiday and Cash Box. Pop Stop is thinking, "Who will this hurt most?"
Meanwhile, A-mei (張惠妹) is going to be making even more money after signing with EMI for a reported NT$150 million. The ceremony was to take place in Hong Kong on April 12 but the company consulted a fortune-teller and it was rescheduled for Monday, since "this was more auspicious and will make her irresistible to the opposite sex," according to Apple Daily. As if looking good, sounding like an angel and banking millions wasn't enough.
Congratulations to TV personality Little S (小S) who is pregnant again. She has just released a single with co-host Kevin Tsai (蔡康永) called How Come You Did It Again? (妳怎麼又來了). Naturally enough, it's a song about being pregnant and all the little things that happen when you're up the duff ... like water retention, bad moods, cravings and skin problems. Good taste prevailed, however, when the duo decided to make the CD a limited release of 200 copies, for friends and relatives only.
Finally, Lin Chi-ling (林志玲) "does not suit the mainland person's appetite," according to a report in the Apple Daily that said the Chinese were unfavorably comparing her royal Taiwanese highness to "Queen of the Catwalk" Shatina Chen (陳思璇). Known as the "Galloping Antelope" at school on account of her long legs, Chen matured into Taiwan's top-earning fashion icon before being eclipsed by Lin's recent run of form in the modeling stakes. For the horse fanciers out there, the 32-year-olds weigh the same, while Lin has bigger breasts and Chen has longer legs.
May 11 to May 18 The original Taichung Railway Station was long thought to have been completely razed. Opening on May 15, 1905, the one-story wooden structure soon outgrew its purpose and was replaced in 1917 by a grandiose, Western-style station. During construction on the third-generation station in 2017, workers discovered the service pit for the original station’s locomotive depot. A year later, a small wooden building on site was determined by historians to be the first stationmaster’s office, built around 1908. With these findings, the Taichung Railway Station Cultural Park now boasts that it has
The latest Formosa poll released at the end of last month shows confidence in President William Lai (賴清德) plunged 8.1 percent, while satisfaction with the Lai administration fared worse with a drop of 8.5 percent. Those lacking confidence in Lai jumped by 6 percent and dissatisfaction in his administration spiked up 6.7 percent. Confidence in Lai is still strong at 48.6 percent, compared to 43 percent lacking confidence — but this is his worst result overall since he took office. For the first time, dissatisfaction with his administration surpassed satisfaction, 47.3 to 47.1 percent. Though statistically a tie, for most
As Donald Trump’s executive order in March led to the shuttering of Voice of America (VOA) — the global broadcaster whose roots date back to the fight against Nazi propaganda — he quickly attracted support from figures not used to aligning themselves with any US administration. Trump had ordered the US Agency for Global Media, the federal agency that funds VOA and other groups promoting independent journalism overseas, to be “eliminated to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law.” The decision suddenly halted programming in 49 languages to more than 425 million people. In Moscow, Margarita Simonyan, the hardline editor-in-chief of the
Six weeks before I embarked on a research mission in Kyoto, I was sitting alone at a bar counter in Melbourne. Next to me, a woman was bragging loudly to a friend: She, too, was heading to Kyoto, I quickly discerned. Except her trip was in four months. And she’d just pulled an all-nighter booking restaurant reservations. As I snooped on the conversation, I broke out in a sweat, panicking because I’d yet to secure a single table. Then I remembered: Eating well in Japan is absolutely not something to lose sleep over. It’s true that the best-known institutions book up faster
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