Jay Chou (周杰倫) continues his reign in the Mando-pop world, at least judging by the nominations announced last week for this year’s Golden Melody Awards (金曲獎). The Chairman’s latest release, Capricorn (魔杰座), appears in eight categories, including best song, best Mandarin-language album, best composer and best lyricist.
But “Chairman fatigue” may be setting in as the media blitz grows. The Liberty Times, the Taipei Times’ sister paper, reported a mixed reaction on Internet discussion boards to Chou’s dominance at the awards.
Fan responses ranged from “Jay Chou is God, Jay Chou is God” to one suggestion from an online poster: we might as well create “The Jay Awards.” (杰倫獎)
Wang Lee-hom (王力宏) only appeared in two Golden Melody categories for his album Heart Beat (心．跳), but he’s likely preoccupied with a new toy: a used car.
To celebrate his 33rd birthday, which fell on Sunday, Wang bought himself a 10-year-old van for NT$60,000 out of environmental and economic considerations, according to the Liberty Times.
Never mind that the Environmental Protection Administration says a 10-year-old car spews out 35 times more in pollutants than a new car, noted the article.
Isn’t he worried that the ladies won’t approve of a second-hand auto? “I’m not worried,” Wang said. “Whoever I go out with will be into my style.”
After a two-year hiatus, Singaporean Stefanie Sun (孫燕姿) returns with what was reportedly to be a high-tech, huge-budget concert at Taipei Arena (台北巨蛋) last weekend. Industry heavyweights were recruited for the two shows that reportedly cost NT$100 million to put on — NT$6 million alone was spent on the star’s seven outfits designed by William Chang (張叔平).
To raise the level of entertainment, Sun assembled a bevy of big-name guest performers that included her buddy Jolin Tsai (蔡依林). Evidently a loyal friend, Tsai showed off her sexy moves despite her record company placing a temporary ban on her dancing after she injured herself while practicing a pirouette. In return, Su reportedly promised to fix Tsai up with some male action.
The shows proved to be as entertaining as expected, especially Su’s outlandish looks that channeled, variously, a cream cake, a teen-girl space warrior and a lobster-red creature from outer space.
There are rumors that Faye Wang (王菲), who made a meteoric rise to fame in 1990s, will be making a comeback. Speculation has been fueled by a report on Sina.com that the pop diva has signed on to do an advertising spot for an unnamed hair products company. Reports on a number of Chinese-language Web sites put her commission for this gig at approximately NT$100 million, a sum that breaks previous records for celebrity endorsements in China.
Images posted on the site show Wang in a golden outfit very reminiscent of Gong Li’s (鞏俐) outfit in The Curse of the Golden Flower (滿城盡帶黃金甲). This is a massive turnaround from news earlier this month about Wang performing chants from the Heart Sutra (心經) at the Famen Temple (法門寺) in Xian (西安), and photos of her draped in a hieratic white gown, hair neatly pulled back from her face.
The news of the advertising gig was quickly followed by a report on Newssc.org, a China Web site, that the next step in her comeback will be a staring role in a Feng Xiaogang’s (馮小剛) new movie about the great Tangshan earthquake of 1976, in which an estimated 242,000 people lost their lives. The figure of about NT$386 million has been bandied about for her role. The ad’s official release, slated for early next month, is awaited with baited breath.
Singer Eason Chan (陳奕迅), a good friend of Wang’s, said in an interview with Ifeng.com, that he was completely taken by surprise by Wang’s move, saying that these days, “She lives like a farmer. She goes to bed at eight (in the evening). It’s really difficult for a night owl like me to meet up with her.” If there is anything in the flurry of rumors about a comeback, Wang’s early bedtime will quickly become a thing of the past.
May 18 to May 24 Pastor Yang Hsu’s (楊煦) congregation was shocked upon seeing the land he chose to build his orphanage. It was surrounded by mountains on three sides, and the only way to access it was to cross a river by foot. The soil was poor due to runoff, and large rocks strewn across the plot prevented much from growing. In addition, there was no running water or electricity. But it was all Yang could afford. He and his Indigenous Atayal wife Lin Feng-ying (林鳳英) had already been caring for 24 orphans in their home, and they were in
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Australia’s ABC last week published a piece on the recall campaign. The article emphasized the divisions in Taiwanese society and blamed the recall for worsening them. It quotes a supporter of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) as saying “I’m 43 years old, born and raised here, and I’ve never seen the country this divided in my entire life.” Apparently, as an adult, she slept through the post-election violence in 2000 and 2004 by the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT), the veiled coup threats by the military when Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) became president, the 2006 Red Shirt protests against him ginned up by
As with most of northern Thailand’s Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) settlements, the village of Arunothai was only given a Thai name once the Thai government began in the 1970s to assert control over the border region and initiate a decades-long process of political integration. The village’s original name, bestowed by its Yunnanese founders when they first settled the valley in the late 1960s, was a Chinese name, Dagudi (大谷地), which literally translates as “a place for threshing rice.” At that time, these village founders did not know how permanent their settlement would be. Most of Arunothai’s first generation were soldiers
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