Taiwanese K-pop star Chou Tzu-yu (周子瑜) left the recent flag controversy in Taiwan behind as her girl group TWICE on Monday won the Best Female Rookie award at the Philippine K-pop Awards.
Sharing a photograph of members receiving the award on Twitter, the group thanked their fans.
Also on Monday, TWICE’s debut music video, Like OOH-AHH, exceeded 3 million hits on YouTube.
The video, which was released in October last year, topped 1 million hits on YouTube on Nov. 14 and broke 2 million hits on Dec. 22.
On Thursday last week, Chou and her TWICE bandmates were also honored as the best new performer in the music disc division at the 30th Golden Disc Awards held in Seoul.
TWICE is manged by JYP Entertainment Co.
Before the ceremony, JYP Entertainment founder and CEO Park Jin-young said that he hoped TWICE would win the best new performer award. The group did not disappoint their boss.
Chou’s mother and father also attended the award ceremony in Seoul.
Speaking in Mandarin, Chou said: “I love you” to her parents on stage when the girl group received the award.
She then continued in Mandarin with a message to their fans: “We are grateful to all of you. Because of you, we are able to stand here and get such a big prize.”
“During this period, you guys kept encouraging us, pushing us to move on. Thank you very much,” she said, most likely referring to the political controversy in Taiwan.
The controversy was sparked by China-based Taiwanese singer Huang An (黃安), who accused Chou of supporting Taiwanese independence in a series of posts on his Sina Weibo microblog early this month, based on the teenager’s waving of the Republic of China (ROC) national flag on a South Korean TV show late last year.
To smooth over the situation, Chou apologized to her management company JYP Entertainment, as well as Chinese netizens, in a YouTube video on Jan. 15, saying “there is only one China... I have always felt proud of being Chinese.”
The apology infuriated many Taiwanese, who accused JYP of forcing Chou into making the apology.
Ahead of attending the music awards in Seoul, Chou, who seemed to have gradually emerged from the political controversy, appeared on the Korean Broadcasting System show Yu Huiyeol’s Sketchbook and the Munhwa Broadcasting Corp’s Idol Star Athletics Championships.
Costa Rica sent a group of intelligence officials to Taiwan for a short-term training program, the first time the Central American country has done so since the countries ended official diplomatic relations in 2007, a Costa Rican media outlet reported last week. Five officials from the Costa Rican Directorate of Intelligence and Security last month spent 23 days in Taipei undergoing a series of training sessions focused on national security, La Nacion reported on Friday, quoting unnamed sources. The Costa Rican government has not confirmed the report. The Chinese embassy in Costa Rica protested the news, saying in a statement issued the same
Taiwan’s Liu Ming-i, right, who also goes by the name Ray Liu, poses with a Chinese Taipei flag after winning the gold medal in the men’s physique 170cm competition at the International Fitness and Bodybuilding Federation Asian Championship in Ajman, United Arab Emirates, yesterday.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
RSS