looks as though television actor Yao Yuan-hao (姚元浩) is not paying off the right people. The Apple Daily reported that Yao, the boyfriend of model Sonia Sui (隋棠), planned to hold a surfing competition for youngsters in Ilan last weekend but was shocked when 30 or so tattooed men dressed in black showed up with surfboards and a heavy dose of attitude.
The report said that on the morning of the competition, Yao received an anonymous phone call telling him to cancel the competition. Or else.
Clearly not one to cave in to threats, Yao simply called on local police to remove the pesky gangsters, who intentionally stood in front of the judges so as to obstruct their view. But the coppers said they couldn’t do anything because it was a public beach. Miffed, Yao had no choice but to cancel the competition.
Perhaps Yao didn’t read a report in last year’s Next Magazine that speculated Sui worked in a hostess bar for a few days to pay off her mother’s debts. Pop Stop wonders if there is a connection.
And speaking of celebs paying off debts, Yuki Hsu (徐懷鈺) went off to perform in China in April to help pay down the mortgage on her family’s home as well as to revive her declining career.
But the 31-year-old singer got more than she bargained for at Very 88 (非常88), a pub in Hangzhou (杭州) with a hostess club atmosphere. Feeling somewhat uncomfortable with the ogling eyes and the wink-wink, nudge-nudge expressions of those present, she quickly finished her set and headed back to Taiwan, according to a report in Next.
Now, ordinarily, this might compel a person to look closer at her contract before signing. But not Hsu. At the beginning of this month she was back in China, and this time it was rumored that she wasn’t even told where she would be performing.
Upon arriving at the “gig,” she was ushered into a private room containing a handful of inebriated businessmen and a few hostesses.
Pop Stop was pondering Hsu’s run of bad luck, both in terms of singing and advances made on her by Chinese men, until we saw her tasteless Bad Girl video on YouTube. It features a skimpily clad Hsu gyrating around a stage with half naked men. It’s not surprising that drunken businessmen in China might expect Hsu to put on a show for them.
“It wasn’t my fault.” These were the words spoken by Zhang Ziyi (章子怡) in reference to the lurid photographs taken of her and Israeli fiancee Aviv “Vivi” Nevo earlier this year at a beach resort in St Barts.
Zhang made the comments while attending the Cannes Film Festival, where she was a judge. “I didn’t do anything harmful,” she said, a fact that seems to be backed up by her continued popularity. Yahoo Kimo released statistics for the most hits per person between January and April and Zhang came out on top.
In other wedding news, plastic surgeon and alleged lothario Li Jin-liang (李進良) is finally tying the knot with Hu Ying-chen (胡盈禎), the daughter of entertainer Hu Gua (胡瓜).
The announcement served as a perfect excuse for Next to exhume some of his old skeletons.
The magazine’s sense of timing is impeccable. Nothing appeals more to short attention spans and puts gossip into a shallower perspective than a few lines (accompanied by a photograph or graphic) detailing the shenanigans of Taiwan’s glitterati.
Readers of Pop Stop will recall Li’s escapades last year when he entertained two friends and three hostesses at a Taipei hotel. Or, before that, when he was accused of sexual harassment by a Japanese porn star. Oddly, neither of these episodes made the cut in this week’s edition of Next. What did was a night out last Christmas with a woman named Mao Mao (毛毛), and the suggestion of infidelity it implied.
According to an interview that Hu gave on a TV talk show on May 14, however, she questioned the veracity of that report because she was present with Li and Mao Mao.
On the same show, she cheekily thanked the gossip rag for running all these stories about them because it’s free advertising for Li’s plastic surgery clinic. It also helps her to keep an eye on her husband, she said.
That US assistance was a model for Taiwan’s spectacular development success was early recognized by policymakers and analysts. In a report to the US Congress for the fiscal year 1962, former President John F. Kennedy noted Taiwan’s “rapid economic growth,” was “producing a substantial net gain in living.” Kennedy had a stake in Taiwan’s achievements and the US’ official development assistance (ODA) in general: In September 1961, his entreaty to make the 1960s a “decade of development,” and an accompanying proposal for dedicated legislation to this end, had been formalized by congressional passage of the Foreign Assistance Act. Two
Despite the intense sunshine, we were hardly breaking a sweat as we cruised along the flat, dedicated bike lane, well protected from the heat by a canopy of trees. The electric assist on the bikes likely made a difference, too. Far removed from the bustle and noise of the Taichung traffic, we admired the serene rural scenery, making our way over rivers, alongside rice paddies and through pear orchards. Our route for the day covered two bike paths that connect in Fengyuan District (豐原) and are best done together. The Hou-Feng Bike Path (后豐鐵馬道) runs southward from Houli District (后里) while the
President William Lai’s (賴清德) March 13 national security speech marked a turning point. He signaled that the government was finally getting serious about a whole-of-society approach to defending the nation. The presidential office summarized his speech succinctly: “President Lai introduced 17 major strategies to respond to five major national security and united front threats Taiwan now faces: China’s threat to national sovereignty, its threats from infiltration and espionage activities targeting Taiwan’s military, its threats aimed at obscuring the national identity of the people of Taiwan, its threats from united front infiltration into Taiwanese society through cross-strait exchanges, and its threats from
March 31 to April 6 On May 13, 1950, National Taiwan University Hospital otolaryngologist Su You-peng (蘇友鵬) was summoned to the director’s office. He thought someone had complained about him practicing the violin at night, but when he entered the room, he knew something was terribly wrong. He saw several burly men who appeared to be government secret agents, and three other resident doctors: internist Hsu Chiang (許強), dermatologist Hu Pao-chen (胡寶珍) and ophthalmologist Hu Hsin-lin (胡鑫麟). They were handcuffed, herded onto two jeeps and taken to the Secrecy Bureau (保密局) for questioning. Su was still in his doctor’s robes at
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