This week's celebrity news features Jay Chou (周杰倫). Delayed by Typhoon Krosa at Hong Kong airport, the pop king rushed to the wedding of local singer Will Liu (劉耕宏) - most famous for being the king's buddy - to beauty queen-turned starlet Wang Wan-fei (王婉霏). He arrived at the NT$23 million ceremony, which was fully sponsored by celebrity friends and multiple businesses, at the last minute on Sunday evening.
In addition to the star-studded, attention-grabbing nuptials, the Liu-Wang union is a modern fairytale, if not plain fable. During the last four years of their eight-year relationship, the Christian convert couple claim to have stuck to a vow of chastity.
No sex for 1,460 days? It's difficult to imagine why anyone would make up such a scenario and Pop Stop would like to refrain from making any innuendos, but hopes the newlyweds enjoy their honeymoon destination, Hawaii, and the earth moves for them.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
In other Chairman Chou (周董) news, the Mando-pop star donned a cowboy outfit for his latest album Jay Chou on the Run (我很忙), and unwittingly became a rent boy. According to Chinese-language media, a Web user under the name of Jack is using Chou's photos to peddle sexual services on an English gay Web site, with a pitch line referring to a "large and uncut tool." The service fee is US$85 per hour and around US$400 a night.
That snippet of news and the cowboy look coincide with the star's recent pronouncement in an interview that if he were a woman, he would fall in love with Wang Lee-hom (王力宏), who is talented, upright and honest.
Those two would make a toothsome couple Pop Stop has to admit.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
Following in the footsteps of his very "close friend" Lin Chi-ling (林志玲), Jerry Yan (言承旭) is eyeing the silver screen again. The first time around, he starred in an obscure romantic comedy Magic Kitchen (魔幻廚房). That was three years ago. Yan's reentry into the coveted movie biz is most likely to be grand and in style as the star was last week caught by paparazzi attending a dinner meeting with not one but three doyens of Hong Kong's cinema industry: Stanley Kwan (關錦鵬); Wong Kar-wai (王家衛); and William Chang (張叔平).
Gossip hounds staking out the joint caught the heartthrob off guard as he walked out of the restaurant after six hours of eating, drinking and getting acquainted with the showbiz movers and shakers. Swiftly escorted and pushed into a car by his escort/agent, Yan disappeared into the night, leaving pundits to ponder the star's next move.
Death metal brand Chthonic (閃靈) has become the nation's new pride and joy after its two-month tour of the US spreading the pro-independence message to the foreign press. Their musical and diplomatic adventure will be made into a documentary by Cheng Wen-tang (鄭文堂), which is expected to hit the international film festival circuit next year.
Currently, the outfit is busy with preparatory work before it departs again, this time to rock Europe with 30 gigs starting next month. One of the concerns raised by the band's erhu player, Su Nung (甦農), however, is not something normally expected from a heavy metal group.
After losing a great deal of money on the stock market during his absence, the artist said a major problem that needs to be solved is how he can stay in touch with his stockbroker while he's globetrotting.
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
Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairman Eric Chu (朱立倫) hatched a bold plan to charge forward and seize the initiative when he held a protest in front of the Taipei City Prosecutors’ Office. Though risky, because illegal, its success would help tackle at least six problems facing both himself and the KMT. What he did not see coming was Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (將萬安) tripping him up out of the gate. In spite of Chu being the most consequential and successful KMT chairman since the early 2010s — arguably saving the party from financial ruin and restoring its electoral viability —
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,
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