The frenzy over Faye Wong’s (王菲) reported miscarriage continues unabated. According to the Liberty Times [the Taipei Times’ sister paper], the media wildfire has spread from Hong Kong and Taiwan to China, where showbiz gossip Web sites speculate that Wong’s husband, Li Yapeng (李亞鵬), was having an affair with Chinese actress Miao Pu (苗圃), which Miao angrily denied.
Rumormongers then speculated that Wong, 39, and Li, who turns 37 tomorrow, were to divorce because the Mando-pop diva did not want to try for another child because of her age. Li’s manager, Ma Jia (馬葭), angrily denied the scuttlebutt as “crazy,” the Liberty Times reports. Wong’s friend, actress Carina Lau (劉嘉玲), echoed Ma’s denial, saying, “I think it’s better for Faye Wong to talk about her matters herself.”
Breathing a collective sigh of relief are the members of girl band S.H.E. and boy band Fahrenheit (飛輪海), who found out that the yogurt drinks they endorse in China were not tainted with melamine, said the product’s manufacturer Mengniu (蒙牛). The two groups, which star in commercials for Mengniu, will carry on as planned with a six-concert tour of China, but their record company says whether the groups will continue with product endorsements in the future remains up in the air.
All this talk of tainted milk has got Chang Fei (張菲) thinking — about himself. A Liberty Times report reveals the TV show host’s musings on current events.
On a recent taping of his show Variety Big Brother (綜藝大哥大), Chang declared that he has stopped drinking pearl milk tea (珍珠奶茶), and no longer takes milk in his coffee. Speaking of coffee gave Chang reason to pay tribute to his friend, the deceased comedian Ni Min-jan (倪敏然), best known for his uncanny impersonations of former vice president Annette Lu (呂秀蓮). Chang says Ni was ahead of his time, being the first in Taiwan to come up with the idea of canned coffee over 30 years ago. Milk, mortality, coffee — it all makes perfect sense.
But at least Chang knows his job is to take people’s minds off things like food scares and cross-strait relations. He gave a nod to Taiwan’s homegrown, surprise box office hit, Cape No. 7 (海角七號), noting the “progress of Taiwan’s film industry.” He laughed, he cried and fancied appearing in a blockbuster himself. He praised director Wei Te-sheng (魏德勝), and said, “You could come and ask me to play in your next film.”
It’s no wonder Chang is looking Wei’s way. Cape No. 7 has broken the NT$100 million mark in box office takings, and the movie’s stars are the center of attention. The male lead, Amis pop singer Van Fan (范逸臣), celebrated the movie’s success by fulfilling a promise he made earlier to swim naked at a beach in Kenting (墾丁) if the film grossed more than NT$30 million.
As with many a big screen hit, there has been conjecture of romance among the cast. A Liberty Times report speculates that Fan and the film’s female lead, Japanese actress Tanaka Chie, had engaged in some offscreen method acting.
At a celebration party at Fan’s pub in the eastern district of Taipei, all eyes were on the pair for outward signs of inward stirrings.
But they didn’t leave the party together. After all, Fan does have a girlfriend, the report said before mentioning the rumor that Chie was slated to star in Fan’s latest music video, but was nixed because of objections from Fan’s girlfriend.
And finally, Wang Lee-hom (王力宏) says he isn’t gay. The Mando-pop superstar, who played to 12,000 fans at his Music Man concert in Taipei City last weekend, told the Apple Daily that his mom even asked him once if he were gay, implying that it would be “OK” if he were.
March 24 to March 30 When Yang Bing-yi (楊秉彝) needed a name for his new cooking oil shop in 1958, he first thought of honoring his previous employer, Heng Tai Fung (恆泰豐). The owner, Wang Yi-fu (王伊夫), had taken care of him over the previous 10 years, shortly after the native of Shanxi Province arrived in Taiwan in 1948 as a penniless 21 year old. His oil supplier was called Din Mei (鼎美), so he simply combined the names. Over the next decade, Yang and his wife Lai Pen-mei (賴盆妹) built up a booming business delivering oil to shops and
Indigenous Truku doctor Yuci (Bokeh Kosang), who resents his father for forcing him to learn their traditional way of life, clashes head to head in this film with his younger brother Siring (Umin Boya), who just wants to live off the land like his ancestors did. Hunter Brothers (獵人兄弟) opens with Yuci as the man of the hour as the village celebrates him getting into medical school, but then his father (Nolay Piho) wakes the brothers up in the middle of the night to go hunting. Siring is eager, but Yuci isn’t. Their mother (Ibix Buyang) begs her husband to let
The Taipei Times last week reported that the Control Yuan said it had been “left with no choice” but to ask the Constitutional Court to rule on the constitutionality of the central government budget, which left it without a budget. Lost in the outrage over the cuts to defense and to the Constitutional Court were the cuts to the Control Yuan, whose operating budget was slashed by 96 percent. It is unable even to pay its utility bills, and in the press conference it convened on the issue, said that its department directors were paying out of pocket for gasoline
For the past century, Changhua has existed in Taichung’s shadow. These days, Changhua City has a population of 223,000, compared to well over two million for the urban core of Taichung. For most of the 1684-1895 period, when Taiwan belonged to the Qing Empire, the position was reversed. Changhua County covered much of what’s now Taichung and even part of modern-day Miaoli County. This prominence is why the county seat has one of Taiwan’s most impressive Confucius temples (founded in 1726) and appeals strongly to history enthusiasts. This article looks at a trio of shrines in Changhua City that few sightseers visit.
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