Chinese New Year is quickly approaching, and it's time to contemplate the auspiciousness of the year ahead. Pop Stop, however, is unashamedly more concerned with "wardrobe malfunctions" and the fate of booze-addled celebrities.
But first, One Million Star "talent" show celebrity Aska Yang (楊宗緯) was reportedly paid a total of NT$1 million for crooning at Foxconn Technology Group (鴻海科技集團) and Fubon Financial Holding Co's (富邦金控) year-end parties, or weiya (尾牙).
In other Yang news, ET Today reports that Gary Tsao (曹格) said his work over the past two years has been meaningless because Yang is getting all the attention for the songs Tsao has written. And we thought Yang was king of the crybabies. In response, Yang, in a burst of humility that is all too rare amongst Taiwan's celebrities, publicly admitted to respecting Tsao and went so far as to call the Singaporean crooner and tell him so.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
Meanwhile, Vivi Wang's (王婉霏) "black forest incident" and Liu Zhen's (劉真) costume malfunction seem to be paying off. The China Times reported that both models were hired for weiya gigs, with Wang reportedly receiving NT$80,000 for the evening. The NT$50,000 fee Wang reputedly charged for the car promotion that included the special viewing leaves Pop Stop wondering what you get for NT$80,000.
Taiwan's authorities are at it again. Earlier in the week, this paper reported that the Taichung County Bureau of Health is in negotiations with Akane Nagase, a Japanese porn star, to help promote condom use. After hearing the news, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator Yang Li-huan (楊麗環) angrily asked, "What is the message that the bureau is trying to spread?" Well, Pop Stop suspects the message the bureau is trying to spread is that businessmen who keep mistresses or visit prostitutes abroad, contract diseases and then return to Taiwan and share them with their wives should realize they have more than just themselves to protect.
Shu Qi (舒淇), the Taiwanese "ex-porn star" as the Mirror newspaper repeatedly reminded readers when it falsely reported that she was sexing it up in a trendy London sushi joint with British bad boy Hugh Grant and his friend John Duigan, has had her reputation restored. Though the gossip rag printed a retraction of the story and an apology, bloggers were miffed that Rupert Murdoch's "red top" kept the "ex-porn star" tag and failed to edify its readers of Shu's sterling acting career over the past 10 years.
PHOTO: TAIPEI TIMES
David Tao's (陶吉吉) drunken exploits last week might land him in jail. The Liberty Times (自由時報) (the Taipei Times' sister newspaper) reported that the sauced singer allegedly assaulted the younger sister of one of his many ex-girlfriends. Pop Stop suspects that the lawsuit, if it comes to pass, could be enough to sober Tao up. Not.
Finally, it looks as though Terri Kwan (關穎), daughter of Jih Sun Group (日盛集團) chairman Chen Kuo-he (陳國和) has dropped sexy models and rich businessmen for that old Taiwanese favorite: gangsters. At least the son of one. An intrepid Apple paparazzo caught Kwan and Chen Chu-he (陳楚河), son of the recently deceased Bamboo Union godfather Chen Chi-li (陳啟禮), together on film. Though the sometime actress vehemently denied that anything was going on, capturing the two together is the kind of tattle that will keep the rumor mill grinding far into the next year.
A jumbo operation is moving 20 elephants across the breadth of India to the mammoth private zoo set up by the son of Asia’s richest man, adjoining a sprawling oil refinery. The elephants have been “freed from the exploitative logging industry,” according to the Vantara Animal Rescue Centre, run by Anant Ambani, son of the billionaire head of Reliance Industries Mukesh Ambani, a close ally of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The sheer scale of the self-declared “world’s biggest wild animal rescue center” has raised eyebrows — including more than 50 bears, 160 tigers, 200 lions, 250 leopards and 900 crocodiles, according to
They were four years old, 15 or only seven months when they were sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald and Ravensbruck. Some were born there. Somehow they survived, began their lives again and had children, grandchildren and even great grandchildren themselves. Now in the evening of their lives, some 40 survivors of the Nazi camps tell their story as the world marks the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, the most notorious of the death camps. In 15 countries, from Israel to Poland, Russia to Argentina, Canada to South Africa, they spoke of victory over absolute evil. Some spoke publicly for the first
Due to the Lunar New Year holiday, from Sunday, Jan. 26, through Sunday, Feb. 2, there will be no Features pages. The paper returns to its usual format on Monday, Feb. 3, when Features will also be resumed. Kung Hsi Fa Tsai!
When 17-year-old Lin Shih (林石) crossed the Taiwan Strait in 1746 with a group of settlers, he could hardly have known the magnitude of wealth and influence his family would later amass on the island, or that one day tourists would be walking through the home of his descendants in central Taiwan. He might also have been surprised to see the family home located in Wufeng District (霧峰) of Taichung, as Lin initially settled further north in what is now Dali District (大里). However, after the Qing executed him for his alleged participation in the Lin Shuang-Wen Rebellion (林爽文事件), his grandsons were
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