Regular readers of Pop Stop will know that popular television host Hu Gua’s (胡瓜) son-in-law, Li Jin-liang (李進良), has been more than a handful even before his June nuptials to Hu’s daughter. Before getting hitched to Hu Ying-chen (胡盈禎), Li allegedly carried on an affair with starlet Mao Mao (毛毛). His past misadventures include charges of sexual harassment by a Japanese porn star and an all-night party with two friends and three hostesses at a Taipei hotel.
But Li may have turned out to be an even bigger boob than either of the Hus imagined. The plastic surgeon was recently fined NT$150,000 and ordered to stop working for three months by the Taipei Department of Health after illegally inserting silicone breast implants into a patient. The enhancers are only allowed for breast reconstruction surgery — the merely vain must content themselves with saline-filled breast implants.
Li admitted to wrongful use of the artificial lady lumps, but defended himself by insisting many of his colleagues do the same thing. A United Daily News report showed that Li’s Web site plugged silicone breast implants for NT$200,000 but did not mention they were limited to reconstruction surgery only. The article helpfully explained that women with “airport physiques” (飛機場體質) prefer silicone because saline implants look less natural on skinny bodies. In the interest of fairness, the United Daily News also added that many other plastic surgery clinic Web sites tout silicone breast implants without explaining the legal limitations on their use.
But Li’s troubles did not stop with the Department of Health. The patient, Hong Mei-nai (洪美奈), claimed at several dramatic press conferences that Li never acted with the breast of intentions. She said the silicone implants were inserted without her consent and that Li also neglected to provide follow-up care when one of the jelly rolls allegedly leaked after
the operation.
A few days after the punishment was levied against Li, Hong, who claimed the fine was too light, “staggered” to the entrance of the district prosecutor’s office with her lawyer and banged on the door in front of a clutch of reporters. Our sister paper the Liberty Times reported that Hong wants to charge Li with professional negligence and slander for claiming that she allegedly tried to extort the clinic for money after the ill-fated operation. She also complained that Li had yet to reach out to her for a settlement or even to apologize. Li’s lawyer responded that he and his client were still in the process of preparing a response to Hong’s accusations.
Hong has been a constant presence in the media since news of the scandal broke about two weeks ago. At a previous gathering, she sobbed while jabbing her left armpit with a pair of scissors, explaining she couldn’t feel a thing. “After the surgery, I was like a handicapped person,” she said. “I couldn’t get out of bed. All I could do was lie there and wet myself.” In addition to the numbness and physical weakness, she says she now suffers from anemia, an irregular heartbeat and mental exhaustion. And, Hong tearfully added, she was forced to postpone her upcoming wedding in the US.
Li could take a page from the life of Eason Chan (陳奕迅) on how to be family man. Oriental Sunday reports that the Hong Kong pop singer and actor has yet to kick his longtime nicotine habit, but sneaks outdoors and smokes in parking lots so his wife, Hilary Tsui (徐濠縈), and school-age daughter won’t have to inhale secondhand smoke. The couple was rumored to have weathered marital troubles last summer, but the storm seems to have passed. Oriental Sunday says that Chan is so busy with his upcoming record that he counts on Tsui to look after their child’s education. The doting mum carries her daughter’s heavy book bag all the way to the school door and picks her up after classes to send her to an English-language buxiban. Tsui was overheard reminding her daughter to study hard “so daddy doesn’t worry about you.”
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
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
Last week the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) said that the budget cuts voted for by the China-aligned parties in the legislature, are intended to force the DPP to hike electricity rates. The public would then blame it for the rate hike. It’s fairly clear that the first part of that is correct. Slashing the budget of state-run Taiwan Power Co (Taipower, 台電) is a move intended to cause discontent with the DPP when electricity rates go up. Taipower’s debt, NT$422.9 billion (US$12.78 billion), is one of the numerous permanent crises created by the nation’s construction-industrial state and the developmentalist mentality it
Experts say that the devastating earthquake in Myanmar on Friday was likely the strongest to hit the country in decades, with disaster modeling suggesting thousands could be dead. Automatic assessments from the US Geological Survey (USGS) said the shallow 7.7-magnitude quake northwest of the central Myanmar city of Sagaing triggered a red alert for shaking-related fatalities and economic losses. “High casualties and extensive damage are probable and the disaster is likely widespread,” it said, locating the epicentre near the central Myanmar city of Mandalay, home to more than a million people. Myanmar’s ruling junta said on Saturday morning that the number killed had
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