When Faye Wong (
Sales figures in Taiwan are unreliable because it's an open secret that labels lie through their teeth about album sales, but Next Magazine (
Nothing seems to be going quite right for Faye, who arrived in Taipei from Hong Kong on Monday for a nine-day promotional tour. The highlight of her trip, which will take her to Taichung and Kaohsiung, was intended to be a meet-and-greet the fans session at the glitzy new Taipei 101 mall, but the bumbling managers of the shopping center somehow added a zero when telling Faye's agents the number of people the space could safely hold. So, Faye's managers who had planned for 2,000 fans were belatedly informed that the space could accommodate only 200. The mix-up forced Faye to switch venues for the event to the far-less glamorous Nankang 101 for this Saturday.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
Things also seem to be going from bad to worse for Momoko Tao(
TV show host and author Mickey Huang (
The pop event of the weekend, sure to be attended by every name in Mando-pop, will be David Tao's (
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
From an anonymous office in a New Delhi mall, matrimonial detective Bhavna Paliwal runs the rule over prospective husbands and wives — a booming industry in India, where younger generations are increasingly choosing love matches over arranged marriage. The tradition of partners being carefully selected by the two families remains hugely popular, but in a country where social customs are changing rapidly, more and more couples are making their own matches. So for some families, the first step when young lovers want to get married is not to call a priest or party planner but a sleuth like Paliwal with high-tech spy
With raging waters moving as fast as 3 meters per second, it’s said that the Roaring Gate Channel (吼門水道) evokes the sound of a thousand troop-bound horses galloping. Situated between Penghu’s Xiyu (西嶼) and Baisha (白沙) islands, early inhabitants ranked the channel as the second most perilous waterway in the archipelago; the top was the seas around the shoals to the far north. The Roaring Gate also concealed sunken reefs, and was especially nasty when the northeasterly winds blew during the autumn and winter months. Ships heading to the archipelago’s main settlement of Magong (馬公) had to go around the west side
When Portugal returned its colony Macao to China in 1999, coffee shop owner Daniel Chao was a first grader living in a different world. Since then his sleepy hometown has transformed into a bustling gaming hub lined with glittering casinos. Its once quiet streets are now jammed with tourist buses. But the growing wealth of the city dubbed the “Las Vegas of the East” has not brought qualities of sustainable development such as economic diversity and high civic participation. “What was once a relaxed, free place in my childhood has become a place that is crowded and highly commercialized,” said Chao. Macao yesterday
For the authorities that brought the Mountains to Sea National Greenway (山海圳國家綠道) into existence, the route is as much about culture as it is about hiking. Han culture dominates the coastal and agricultural flatlands of Tainan and Chiayi counties, but as the Greenway climbs along its Tribal Trail (原鄉之路) section, hikers pass through communities inhabited by members of the Tsou Indigenous community. Leaving Chiayi County’s Dapu Village (大埔), walkers follow Provincial Highway 3 to Dapu Bridge where a sign bearing the Tsou greeting “a veo veo yu” marks the point at which the Greenway turns off to follow Qingshan Industrial Road (青山產業道路)