It's no secret that Hong Kong singer/actress Anita Mui (梅艷芳) has had some health problems of late, but Next Magazine (壹週刊) seems to be wandering onto thin legal ice in its latest issue by announcing that Mui is suffering from cervical cancer.
Mui has tried to silence the reports in the Hong Kong media about her health problems, to no avail, and threatened to sue anyone who writes erroneous stories on the subject. Never one to fear a lawsuit, Next references unnamed sources to back its claim that Mui has come down with the deadly disease. As evidence, the report says her family allegedly has been burning a lot of ghost money and carrying out various prayer rituals. Also, she's wearing black-bead bracelets that carry religious significance, and spent a night in hospital two weeks ago, where she received numerous mid-night hospital visits from famous friends like William So (蘇永康) and Nicholas Tse (謝霆鋒).
Mui said, however, that her hospital stay was not to treat anything as serious as the tabloids were suggesting. But so far, she hasn't clearly stated what ailment she is suffering from. The ominous element in the story is the fact that her sister died of cervical cancer three years ago at the age of 41.
Leaving the serious stuff behind and diving into the inane news that Pop Stop enjoys most, the gloves have come off and the claws are out in the battle between Sun Yanzi (孫燕姿) fans and S.H.E. fans after the g-music billboard chart was released last week. The chart showed that Yanzi had edged out the cutesy trio of Selina (S), Hebe (H) and Ella (E) to grab first place in sales and since then S.H.E. fans have been going for the jugular in online chat rooms. In the first week of its release on Aug. 22, Yanzi's album The Moment sold over 250,000 copies, just a few thousand more than S.H.E.
Selina and Hebe may have fed the flames of their fans' ire by telling media after the results came out that no matter what the chart says, "S.H.E.'s album will always be number one in our hearts and in the hearts of our fans."
The messages posted by rabid fans were so vitriolic, top executives for Yanzi and S.H.E.'s respective record labels tried to urge restraint from fans and praised their competitors. The calls for harmony are nice, but Pop Stop is really hoping for a rumble in Hsimenting between the two camps.
Leaving the pettiness of Taiwan teenie bopper fans behind, doe-eyed singer Jolin Tsai (蔡依林) took her show to Las Vegas, of all places, for a one-off concert last weekend at the Mandalay Bay resort and casino. It's not certain how many Chinese music fans made the trek to Las Vegas for the show, but she probably doesn't care, the one-hour show earned her a cool NT$2.5 million.
Also earning a quick American buck recently is Lee Hom Wang (王力宏), who signed up with McDonald's for the company's new international ad campaign. Lee Hom will be the voice in Chinese-speaking areas for the four-minute ditty composed by McDonald's headquarters. Just for recording the song, Lee Hom is reportedly raking in over seven figures, albeit in NT dollars.
Lee Hom will be performing in Taipei on Oct. 11 so if you haven't seen the ad on TV by then, you can probably hear the song at the show.
If we're to believe the Liberty Times (自由時報), the past week has seen an invasion of foreign stars looking to run off with Taiwanese people's money.
"If Taiwan's entertainment industry can't improve itself and create a larger space for the arts, then sooner or later, foreign artists will run away with our money," said the paper's column "Scissors" (剪刀) in its edition last Thursday. The column followed up on Tuesday in a piece titled "Korean stars aren't gods" by pillorying Korean TV star Han Jae-seok (韓在石) for failing to show up at a press conference. According to the column, the actor, who was reported to have had to attend an urgent meeting at the time, was not showing the proper respect to the Taiwanese press.
Pop Stop will be curious to see if "Scissors" has anything to say about Japanese E-cup porn star Asakawa Ran coming to Taiwan to launch a new career. Whatever she does, it won't be porn, because that's illegal here, and anyway, the market was cornered by that Taiwan Plumber (台灣水電工) movie that's all over the Web.
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
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,
Mongolian influencer Anudari Daarya looks effortlessly glamorous and carefree in her social media posts — but the classically trained pianist’s road to acceptance as a transgender artist has been anything but easy. She is one of a growing number of Mongolian LGBTQ youth challenging stereotypes and fighting for acceptance through media representation in the socially conservative country. LGBTQ Mongolians often hide their identities from their employers and colleagues for fear of discrimination, with a survey by the non-profit LGBT Centre Mongolia showing that only 20 percent of people felt comfortable coming out at work. Daarya, 25, said she has faced discrimination since she
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