Chinese-language media report that singer and racing driver Jimmy Lin (林志穎) has become a father. Girlfriend Chen Ruo-yi (陳若儀) gave birth to a son earlier this week in California, and a story in the United Daily News suggests that although the parents are, er, keeping mum about the illegitimate child, Lin will acknowledge paternity following the end of his current concert tour.
It is perhaps no coincidence that his soon-to-be-released album’s title translates as “low-profile love” (低調愛).
The vernacular media have been uncharacteristically backward in coming forward: the news that one of the Chinese-speaking world’s most eligible bachelors has a girlfriend and child hardly created a stir.
The fact that Andy Lau (劉德華) managed to retain his fan base despite being “outed” as a family man has likely paved the way for a younger generation of male celebrities to be more up front about their private lives.
Does this mean the rabid media scrum is exercising a modicum of self-restraint?
Not likely ...
The ubiquity of digital photography proved fertile ground for celebrity gossip this past week. While none of the following beat Edison Chen’s (陳冠希) magnum opus, a number of celebrities have been caught with their proverbial pants down.
Elva Hsiao (蕭亞軒), based on a photo “provided by a reader” published in the United Daily News, is dating TV actor Lee Wei (李威). The damning and irrefutable evidence is a shot of Lee draping his arm round Hsiao’s shoulder. Both parties vehemently deny being an item.
In a different league, photos posted on the Internet may cause graver problems for Jamie Weng (翁家明).
Reports in March had Weng’s marriage to actress Grace Yu (俞小凡) on the rocks after revelations surfaced that he was having an affair with flight attendant Su Chia-man (蘇家漫). He subsequently flew to Shanghai where Yu was filming to beg forgiveness, and promised to stop playing away from home. Following a tip from a reader, who suggested that Weng had failed to keep his promise, diligent staffers at Next Magazine uncovered a photo of Weng and Su striking a pose of undisguised intimacy posted on Picasa. According to the magazine, the photo was posted at the end of last month.
Next Magazine laments that following these revelations, Weng has been keeping a low profile, which adds to the challenge of verifying the rumors, in the interests of truth.
Yu could exact revenge by hooking up with Chang Cheng-yue (張震嶽), who is back in play after splitting up from Miranda Lu (路嘉怡). Chang has been busy with a super group comprising venerable rockers Lo Ta-yu (羅大佑), Emil Chou (周華健) and Jonathan Lee (李宗盛), which has proved a shrewd move financially. He’s already made headlines by dating an unnamed woman who has been nicknamed “big-eyed chick” (大眼妹) by Next Magazine.
After breaking up with “foreign boyfriend” Paul soon after the release of her English album Self-Selected, Faith Yang (楊乃文) seems to have hitched up with David Wu (吳大維), a man whose list of former relationships reads like a who’s who of Taiwan’s celebrity firmament. Yang may face competition in the form of glamour model Hsiang Ying (湘瑩), who Next Magazine reports has been recently sighted with Wu.
Since their leader Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) and others were jailed as part of several ongoing bribery investigations, the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) has risen in the polls. Additionally, despite all the many and varied allegations against Ko and most of the top people in the party, it has held together with only a tiny number of minor figures exiting. The TPP has taken some damage, but vastly less than the New Power Party (NPP) did after it was caught up in a bribery scandal in 2020. The TPP has for years registered favorability in the thirties, and a Formosa poll
Chiayi County is blessed with several worthwhile upland trails, not all of which I’ve hiked. A few weeks ago, I finally got around to tackling Tanghu Historic Trail (塘湖古道), a short but unusually steep route in Jhuci Township (竹崎). According to the Web site of the Alishan National Scenic Area (阿里山國家風景區), the path climbs from 308m above sea level to an elevation of 770m in just 1.58km, an average gradient of 29 percent. And unless you arrange for someone to bring you to the starting point and collect you at the other end, there’s no way to avoid a significant amount
Nov. 4 to Nov. 10 Apollo magazine (文星) vowed that it wouldn’t play by the rules in its first issue — a bold statement to make in 1957, when anyone could be jailed for saying the wrong thing. However, the introduction to the inaugural Nov. 5 issue also defined the magazine as a “lifestyle, literature and art” publication, and the contents were relatively tame for the first four years, writes Tao Heng-sheng (陶恒生) in “The Apollo magazine that wouldn’t play by the rules” (不按牌理出牌的文星雜誌). In 1961, the magazine changed its mission to “thought, lifestyle and art” and adopted a more critical tone with
While global attention is finally being focused on the People’s Republic of China (PRC) gray zone aggression against Philippine territory in the South China Sea, at the other end of the PRC’s infamous 9 dash line map, PRC vessels are conducting an identical campaign against Indonesia, most importantly in the Natuna Islands. The Natunas fall into a gray area: do the dashes at the end of the PRC “cow’s tongue” map include the islands? It’s not clear. Less well known is that they also fall into another gray area. Indonesia’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) claim and continental shelf claim are not
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