Edison Chen (陳冠希) has left the building, but the storm he has stirred up is likely to rage a while longer. After all, it's all grist to the media mill. Next magazine plumbed new depths this week with its feature story on one of the hookers who reportedly provided services for the former Canto-crooner.
Besides the stars who were involved in the sex photo scandal and the others rumored to feature in the unreleased photos confiscated by police, old friend and staunch supporter, Shu Qi (舒淇), has been tainted by association.
A series of T-shirts released by Original Fake in association with Clot depicts the ex-sex kitten in lace knickers with garters and a backless nurse costume. On another shirt she is portrayed getting intimate with a cartoon sperm. Internet gossipmongers have been quick to spot similarities in the provocative pose with those in the photos taken from Chen's computer. The fact that Shu has been a staunch supporter of Chen even after the scandal broke has only lent fuel to the fire. Then again, Shu's sex life has hardly been a closely guarded secret, so even though she has now given up her vampish ways and is a bad girl gone good, the whole business of being seen getting naked on camera must just seem so last year.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
In other news, the first celebrity feud stemming from CTV's One Million Star (超級星光大道) pop idol reality show is about to begin. Jam Xiao (蕭敬騰) and Aska Yang (楊宗緯), who managed to manipulate press hype surrounding his disqualification into stardom, are going at it. Though Xiao defeated Yang during the first season of the show, both have been signed to Warner, but Yang once again seems to have gotten the short end of the stick. Jam is in the hands of Chen Tse-shan (陳澤杉), the celebrated music impressario who the Liberty Times (the Taipei Times' sister paper) says will return to Warner Music in May, after two-and-a-half years as director of EMI. Chen, who is rumored to be taking many high-powered EMI artists with him, has procured for Xiao a lucrative eight-figure deal which includes all of Warner's international marketing muscle. Yang, whose recently released album Dove (鴿子) hit number one on the G-Music charts this week, is hardly complaining, but according to Next magazine, the fact that he is being handled by showbiz entrepreneur Hsu An-chin (許安進) means that Warner will view him as an "outsider," denying him the perks of their own house artists.
Yang has further competition from Lin You-jia (林宥嘉), who won the first season of One Million Star. Yang will be holding his first major concert on May 17, and is likely to be compared with Lin, who will start an nationwide tour on May 24 following the release of his first album. A report in the United Daily News (UDN) says that tickets are already selling well and that he is likely to perform before 12,000 people.
A-Mei (張惠妹) is over 20 and has wowed stadiums seating thousands, but "the light of Taiwan" (台灣之光), as she is described in a UDN report, is suffering from sleepless nights as she prepares to take the stage in a Japanese production of Turandot. She is currently in Tokyo working day and night on this unconventional role. UDN quoted A-Mei as saying that she is so nervous that she has broken out in pimples, but at least she doesn't have the pressure of being a superstar over there. "It's like when I was a student in Boston," she said. "Nobody knows me here, so there isn't the pressure of being A-Mei."
Nothing like the spectacular, dramatic unraveling of a political party in Taiwan has unfolded before as has hit the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) over recent weeks. The meltdown of the New Power Party (NPP) and the self-implosion of the New Party (NP) were nothing compared to the drama playing out now involving the TPP. This ongoing saga is so interesting, this is the fifth straight column on the subject. To catch up on this train wreck of a story up to Aug. 20, search for “Donovan’s Deep Dives Ko Wen-je” in a search engine. ANN KAO SENTENCED TO PRISON YET AGAIN,
Despite her well-paying tech job, Li Daijing didn’t hesitate when her cousin asked for help running a restaurant in Mexico City. She packed up and left China for the Mexican capital last year, with dreams of a new adventure. The 30-year-old woman from Chengdu, the Sichuan provincial capital, hopes one day to start an online business importing furniture from her home country. “I want more,” Li said. “I want to be a strong woman. I want independence.” Li is among a new wave of Chinese migrants who are leaving their country in search of opportunities, more freedom or better financial prospects at a
When the Dutch began interacting with the indigenous people of Taiwan, they found that their hunters classified deer hide quality for trade using the Portuguese terms for “head,” “belly,” and “foot.” The Portuguese must have stopped here more than once to trade, but those visits have all been lost to history. They already had a colony on Macao, and did not need Taiwan to gain access to southern China or to the trade corridor that connected Japan with Manila. They were, however, the last to look at Taiwan that way. The geostrategic relationship between Taiwan and the Philippines was established
Sept. 9 to Sept. 15 The upgrading of sugarcane processing equipment at Ciaozaitou Sugar Factory (橋仔頭) in 1904 had an unintended but long-lasting impact on Taiwan’s transportation and rural development. The newly imported press machine more than doubled production, leading to an expansion of the factory’s fields beyond what its original handcarts and oxcarts could handle. In 1905, factory manager Tejiro Yamamoto headed to Hawaii to observe how sugarcane transportation was handled there. They had trouble finding something suitable for Taiwan until they discovered a 762mm-gauge “miniature” railroad at a small refinery in the island of Maui. On
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