Pneumatic media personality Yaoyao (瑤瑤), real name Kuo Shu-yao (郭書瑤), is climbing off the DD-list with her best-selling new album — but her ascendance in the charts has reportedly reduced one pop rival to tears and another to a hissy fit.
Singer Angela Chang (張韶涵) burst into tears at a recent press event, which our sister paper The Liberty Times attributed to the fact that her latest album, 5th Season (第五季), has been superseded by Yaoyao’s Hug of Love: Farewell to 18 (愛的抱抱:告別18歲) in Taiwan’s music charts.
To be fair, Chang has plenty of reasons to cry that have nothing to do with her rival, who was previously best known for riding a mechanical horse braless in a commercial. The pop star and actress is in the midst of a well-publicized feud with her mother and father, who say she is a negligent daughter and left them mired in poverty even as she enjoys the limelight. Chang, on the other hand, accuses her parents of mismanaging her earnings.
Since news of the family scandal broke last month, Chang has pleaded with the media to leave the matter alone and refused to answer further questions. Last weekend marked her return to the public eye after keeping a low profile for nearly a year and a half, with a performance and autograph signing session to promote 5th Season.
Unfortunately, Chang started sniveling after just two songs. Afterwards she denied that Yaoyao’s dominance in the charts had caused the tears, and said she was just touched by the continuing support and affection of her fans.
“It’s been 10 years since I was first signed to a record label. I care less about sales numbers than the affirmation of my fans,” Chang said.
“If there is a talented new singer out there, people should support him or her,” she added.
Fellow pop singer Peter Pan (潘裕文), however, was less gracious. The singer’s latest album, Dreamer (夢.想.家), received good reviews, but has lagged in the charts. His record label issued a pouty statement after the numbers were in, bemoaning the fact that there is no accounting for taste among listeners. Pan himself sarcastically asked fans for a “loving hug,” a play on the title of Yaoyao’s album. Yaoyao’s own label called the kvetching “pointless.”
“Everyone thinks they are number one, so why don’t they just proclaim themselves number one?” it said in a statement.
While Yaoyao’s album topped Taiwan’s two major music charts, Penny Lin’s (林韋君) twin peaks were getting some attention of their own. Next Magazine worked itself into a lather over its beachside photo shoot with the model and soap actress. The gossip rag gloried in the fact that Lin had insisted on going surfing even though the photographer said the waves were too rough; celebrated when the stick-on bra Lin was wearing underneath her bikini top fell into the ocean; panted as said top rolled upwards and Lin’s right breast was nearly exposed; and muffled its regret when Lin modestly held the surfboard in front of her chest.
The rest of Next Magazine’s fluff piece reported that Lin, who split with her boyfriend three months ago, was spotted in a tete-a-tete with actor Wallace Huo (霍建華) at a nightclub. Lin insisted that Huo “just came by to say hi,” though he clearly had more than that to say, because the chat lasted for three hours.
Hopefully Lin will have more luck in love than fellow actress and model Kelly Lin (林熙蕾, no relation), who recently split from her fiance, singer and actor Ken Zhu (朱孝天). The break-up came several days after the duo announced they were delaying their wedding and just a few months after Lin and Zhu finally went public with their four-year relationship. Various media reports said that Lin was unhappy with Zhu’s income and stalling career. The actor is currently appearing on MoMo Love (桃花小妹). Lin thought the TV series would turn her fiance’s life around. But instead, he has allegedly fought with crewmembers and showed up to work hungover.
Reports of Zhu partying in nightclubs while filming in Taichung were allegedly the final straw for Lin. The couple met in 2005 when Zhu was at his peak, starring in hit series Meteor Garden (流星花園) and performing with popular boy band F4. “She had no idea Zhu would so quickly burst into fatness, become stagnated in his career and find less and less work, while her own light grew brighter,” The Liberty Times tartly wrote.
April 14 to April 20 In March 1947, Sising Katadrepan urged the government to drop the “high mountain people” (高山族) designation for Indigenous Taiwanese and refer to them as “Taiwan people” (台灣族). He considered the term derogatory, arguing that it made them sound like animals. The Taiwan Provincial Government agreed to stop using the term, stating that Indigenous Taiwanese suffered all sorts of discrimination and oppression under the Japanese and were forced to live in the mountains as outsiders to society. Now, under the new regime, they would be seen as equals, thus they should be henceforth
Last week, the the National Immigration Agency (NIA) told the legislature that more than 10,000 naturalized Taiwanese citizens from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) risked having their citizenship revoked if they failed to provide proof that they had renounced their Chinese household registration within the next three months. Renunciation is required under the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例), as amended in 2004, though it was only a legal requirement after 2000. Prior to that, it had been only an administrative requirement since the Nationality Act (國籍法) was established in
Three big changes have transformed the landscape of Taiwan’s local patronage factions: Increasing Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) involvement, rising new factions and the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) significantly weakened control. GREEN FACTIONS It is said that “south of the Zhuoshui River (濁水溪), there is no blue-green divide,” meaning that from Yunlin County south there is no difference between KMT and DPP politicians. This is not always true, but there is more than a grain of truth to it. Traditionally, DPP factions are viewed as national entities, with their primary function to secure plum positions in the party and government. This is not unusual
US President Donald Trump’s bid to take back control of the Panama Canal has put his counterpart Jose Raul Mulino in a difficult position and revived fears in the Central American country that US military bases will return. After Trump vowed to reclaim the interoceanic waterway from Chinese influence, US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth signed an agreement with the Mulino administration last week for the US to deploy troops in areas adjacent to the canal. For more than two decades, after handing over control of the strategically vital waterway to Panama in 1999 and dismantling the bases that protected it, Washington has
RSS