Chinese New Year is quickly approaching, and it's time to contemplate the auspiciousness of the year ahead. Pop Stop, however, is unashamedly more concerned with "wardrobe malfunctions" and the fate of booze-addled celebrities.
But first, One Million Star "talent" show celebrity Aska Yang (楊宗緯) was reportedly paid a total of NT$1 million for crooning at Foxconn Technology Group (鴻海科技集團) and Fubon Financial Holding Co's (富邦金控) year-end parties, or weiya (尾牙).
In other Yang news, ET Today reports that Gary Tsao (曹格) said his work over the past two years has been meaningless because Yang is getting all the attention for the songs Tsao has written. And we thought Yang was king of the crybabies. In response, Yang, in a burst of humility that is all too rare amongst Taiwan's celebrities, publicly admitted to respecting Tsao and went so far as to call the Singaporean crooner and tell him so.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
Meanwhile, Vivi Wang's (王婉霏) "black forest incident" and Liu Zhen's (劉真) costume malfunction seem to be paying off. The China Times reported that both models were hired for weiya gigs, with Wang reportedly receiving NT$80,000 for the evening. The NT$50,000 fee Wang reputedly charged for the car promotion that included the special viewing leaves Pop Stop wondering what you get for NT$80,000.
Taiwan's authorities are at it again. Earlier in the week, this paper reported that the Taichung County Bureau of Health is in negotiations with Akane Nagase, a Japanese porn star, to help promote condom use. After hearing the news, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Yang Li-huan (楊麗環) angrily asked, "What is the message that the bureau is trying to spread?" Well, Pop Stop suspects the message the bureau is trying to spread is that businessmen who keep mistresses or visit prostitutes abroad, contract diseases and then return to Taiwan and share them with their wives should realize they have more than just themselves to protect.
Shu Qi (舒淇), the Taiwanese "ex-porn star" as the Mirror newspaper repeatedly reminded readers when it falsely reported that she was sexing it up in a trendy London sushi joint with British bad boy Hugh Grant and his friend John Duigan, has had her reputation restored. Though the gossip rag printed a retraction of the story and an apology, bloggers were miffed that Rupert Murdoch's "red top" kept the "ex-porn star" tag and failed to edify its readers of Shu's sterling acting career over the past 10 years.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
David Tao's (陶吉吉) drunken exploits last week might land him in jail. The Liberty Times (自由時報) (the Taipei Times' sister newspaper) reported that the sauced singer allegedly assaulted the younger sister of one of his many ex-girlfriends. Pop Stop suspects that the lawsuit, if it comes to pass, could be enough to sober Tao up. Not.
Finally, it looks as though Terri Kwan (關穎), daughter of Jih Sun Group (日盛集團) chairman Chen Kuo-he (陳國和) has dropped sexy models and rich businessmen for that old Taiwanese favorite: gangsters. At least the son of one. An intrepid Apple paparazzo caught Kwan and Chen Chu-he (陳楚河), son of the recently deceased Bamboo Union godfather Chen Chi-li (陳啟禮), together on film. Though the sometime actress vehemently denied that anything was going on, capturing the two together is the kind of tattle that will keep the rumor mill grinding far into the next year.
The canonical shot of an East Asian city is a night skyline studded with towering apartment and office buildings, bright with neon and plastic signage, a landscape of energy and modernity. Another classic image is the same city seen from above, in which identical apartment towers march across the city, spilling out over nearby geography, like stylized soldiers colonizing new territory in a board game. Densely populated dynamic conurbations of money, technological innovation and convenience, it is hard to see the cities of East Asia as what they truly are: necropolises. Why is this? The East Asian development model, with
June 16 to June 22 The following flyer appeared on the streets of Hsinchu on June 12, 1895: “Taipei has already fallen to the Japanese barbarians, who have brought great misery to our land and people. We heard that the Japanese occupiers will tax our gardens, our houses, our bodies, and even our chickens, dogs, cows and pigs. They wear their hair wild, carve their teeth, tattoo their foreheads, wear strange clothes and speak a strange language. How can we be ruled by such people?” Posted by civilian militia leader Wu Tang-hsing (吳湯興), it was a call to arms to retake
This is a deeply unsettling period in Taiwan. Uncertainties are everywhere while everyone waits for a small army of other shoes to drop on nearly every front. During challenging times, interesting political changes can happen, yet all three major political parties are beset with scandals, strife and self-inflicted wounds. As the ruling party, the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) is held accountable for not only the challenges to the party, but also the nation. Taiwan is geopolitically and economically under threat. Domestically, the administration is under siege by the opposition-controlled legislature and growing discontent with what opponents characterize as arrogant, autocratic
When Lisa, 20, laces into her ultra-high heels for her shift at a strip club in Ukraine’s Kharkiv, she knows that aside from dancing, she will have to comfort traumatized soldiers. Since Russia’s 2022 invasion, exhausted troops are the main clientele of the Flash Dancers club in the center of the northeastern city, just 20 kilometers from Russian forces. For some customers, it provides an “escape” from the war, said Valerya Zavatska — a 25-year-old law graduate who runs the club with her mother, an ex-dancer. But many are not there just for the show. They “want to talk about what hurts,” she
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