Taiwanese singer and 1980s icon Monique Lin (林慧萍) shocked the entertainment world last week when she and her now ex-husband, Terry Pan (潘博照), announced that they had quietly signed divorce papers last month, ending a decade-long marriage.
The singer, known as a Jade Lady (玉女) for her good looks and elegant demeanor, moved to Los Angeles after she got married but recently returned to Taiwan to revive her pop career. Until this summer, Pan made a point of showing up and cheering his wife at her appearances, and in July the duo hosted a dinner party together.
Lin and Pan cited “personality differences” (個性上的差異) and took pains to state that no one else had been involved in their decision to split. This, of course, did not prevent rampant speculation in the media. The Liberty Times (the Taipei Times’ sister newspaper) reported that friends of the couple had long been aware of Pan’s chronic womanizing, but the husband-and-wife team hid their problems to prevent Lin’s golden-girl image becoming tarnished.
Other news reports named Vivian Hsu (徐懷瑛), a former employee of Pan’s (not to be confused with the famous Taiwanese singer/actress with the same English name (徐若)), as the third wheel. The two allegedly embarked on an affair last year, though Pan, Hsu and Lin have all vigorously denied the rumors. Reports about the alleged love triangle focus on Hsu’s good looks, her lively personality, penchant for hot pants and miniskirts and the fact that, at 43, she is three years younger than Lin.
Someone who might have been following the flurry of media reports about Lin’s divorce is pop singer Chao Cheng-ping (趙正平) of JXT BOY (景行廳男孩), who had little else to do while laid up in bed after earning the dubious distinction of being the first Taiwanese entertainer to come down with swine flu.
Zhao was admitted to the hospital and diagnosed with the disease last week after coming down with a fever. He was ordered to stay away from people as he recovered, including fellow bandmembers Vincent Liang
(梁赫群) and Lin Chih-hsien (林智賢). Their manager said the 41-year-old bachelor was subsisting on frozen dumplings, but fans need not fear for their idol — his record label will send him more provisions if need be and his mommy is also looking after him.
Angela Chang (張韶涵), on the other hand, won’t be counting on her mother for chicken soup and pats on the back any time soon. The Taiwanese pop singer and her estranged family have been using the media as a battlefield for a volley of angry messages. Chang’s mom told reporters that her daughter is a cold-hearted ingrate, while Chang said her parents had mismanaged her earnings.
The singer, who spent her adolescence in Canada, returned to Taiwan to launch her entertainment career after graduating from high school in 2000. Her mother was her constant companion and advisor until last year, when the two suddenly fell out. Chang reportedly kicked her mom out of their shared home, launching a feud that has dragged other family members into the mire.
Gossip rags say that even though Chang’s mother and father are divorced, the two have united against their daughter, claiming that her luxurious lifestyle is in stark contrast to their own. Chang’s father says he makes a pittance selling noodles in a night market, while her mother sells slippers and works in a store.
During a terse press conference last week, Chang expressed frustration that her family feud had become public and said she hoped to resolve it as quickly as possible. She added that after returning to Taiwan from Canada last year, she discovered her mother had made off with her earnings and was refusing to disclose where the money was.
A Linfair Records (福茂唱片) representative also defended its star, stating that “Angela has been supporting her family for years,” before adding that her newest record would drop on Sept. 25.
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
The latest military exercises conducted by the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) last week did not follow the standard Chinese Communist Party (CCP) formula. The US and Taiwan also had different explanations for the war games. Previously the CCP would plan out their large-scale military exercises and wait for an opportunity to dupe the gullible into pinning the blame on someone else for “provoking” Beijing, the most famous being former house speaker Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan in August 2022. Those military exercises could not possibly have been organized in the short lead time that it was known she was coming.
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
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