Ethan Ruan (阮經天) and Tiffany Hsu (許瑋甯) are an on-again off-again couple that people just love to talk about, probably because Ruan always seem on the verge of going off the rails with yet another bimbo. The couple were spotted by Apple Daily down in Kenting last weekend, and while they continue to strenuously deny that they are together, Hsu was sporting a contraceptive patch with her black bikini, which had the expected effect of whipping up media curiosity, and the two where tracked down to a guesthouse they were sharing. Apple Daily thought this shockingly inconsiderate behavior on the part of Ruan and Hsu, especially when they try so hard to avoid the media spotlight in Taipei. The fashionable pair also got their stories in a muddle when questioned by the media after taking to the stage this week at Paul Smith and Ferragamo catwalk shows. This all seems rather disingenuous given Ruan’s reputation and his long association with Hsu, but the Apple Daily is relentless, to misquote the Air Supply song, in “making news out of nothing at all.”
Chen Chu-he (陳楚河), a co-star with Ruan on the hit TV series To Love You Is My Destiny (命中注定我愛你), is also keeping the paparazzi busy at all hours of the night. Chen has been getting plenty of coverage for his recent, tempestuous liaison with Ella Chen (陳嘉樺) of the girl-group S.H.E, but now his attention seems to have turned to the abundantly endowed lingerie model Wang Yu-fei (王毓菲), better known as Hsiung Hsiung (熊熊). For the record, Wang is said to have a 32F cup-size, and Next magazine suggests that this is more than sufficient reason for Chen’s change of heart. Wang is said to be generous with her charms, and according to Next she is a well-known presence on the Internet, appearing in various photo sites. A delightful image of Wang holding a NT$50 piece between her pendulous protuberances, one of many images on www.g-years.com, a Web forum, is recommended for anyone who shares Next magazine’s breast fixation.
Carrying on the theme of the body beautiful, Coco Chiang’s (蔣怡) success in the basketball romance Hot Shot (籃球火) is helping make the bronzed look more popular in white skin-obsessed Taiwan. Dark skin began to register on the style charts with the appearance of Guatemalan-Taiwanese model Liz Yang’s (楊莉思) and her involvement with singer David Tao (陶吉吉), and is being reinforced by the relentless barrage of images of Janet Hsieh (謝怡芬), host of Fun Taiwan, whose career has blossomed recently following her romance with her manager Li Ching-bai (李景白).
While Pop Stop is sure that the spike in Hsieh’s exposure it due totally to natural talent, there are others in the entertainment industry who seem less coy about getting a little help from a friend. Little Pan-pan (小潘潘) has been having something of a rough time recently, what with getting busted for drugs last November — she was cleared but her name got dragged through the mud — then the show she was hosting, Videoland’s The Incredible World (不可思議的世界) got the chop. To console herself, she spent NT$200,000 at the plastic surgeons before the Lunar New Year, and has now just moved into a new apartment costing nearly NT$30 million. Next magazine suggests that it is an endorsement contract from Q.T. Skin (六員環有限公司) owned by “close friend” Yen Chien-cheng (嚴健誠), that is keeping the wolf from Little Pan-pan’s door.
In the March 9 edition of the Taipei Times a piece by Ninon Godefroy ran with the headine “The quiet, gentle rhythm of Taiwan.” It started with the line “Taiwan is a small, humble place. There is no Eiffel Tower, no pyramids — no singular attraction that draws the world’s attention.” I laughed out loud at that. This was out of no disrespect for the author or the piece, which made some interesting analogies and good points about how both Din Tai Fung’s and Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s (TSMC, 台積電) meticulous attention to detail and quality are not quite up to
April 21 to April 27 Hsieh Er’s (謝娥) political fortunes were rising fast after she got out of jail and joined the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) in December 1945. Not only did she hold key positions in various committees, she was elected the only woman on the Taipei City Council and headed to Nanjing in 1946 as the sole Taiwanese female representative to the National Constituent Assembly. With the support of first lady Soong May-ling (宋美齡), she started the Taipei Women’s Association and Taiwan Provincial Women’s Association, where she
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) hatched a bold plan to charge forward and seize the initiative when he held a protest in front of the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office. Though risky, because illegal, its success would help tackle at least six problems facing both himself and the KMT. What he did not see coming was Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (將萬安) tripping him up out of the gate. In spite of Chu being the most consequential and successful KMT chairman since the early 2010s — arguably saving the party from financial ruin and restoring its electoral viability —
It is one of the more remarkable facts of Taiwan history that it was never occupied or claimed by any of the numerous kingdoms of southern China — Han or otherwise — that lay just across the water from it. None of their brilliant ministers ever discovered that Taiwan was a “core interest” of the state whose annexation was “inevitable.” As Paul Kua notes in an excellent monograph laying out how the Portuguese gave Taiwan the name “Formosa,” the first Europeans to express an interest in occupying Taiwan were the Spanish. Tonio Andrade in his seminal work, How Taiwan Became Chinese,
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