Pop Stop begins this week with a warning to all Taiwanese celebrities heading to China: Don’t expect the personal details on your visa application to stay personal. This is what the notoriously private Jerry Yan (言承旭), of boy band F4, discovered a few days back.
Yan, unlike many in Taiwan’s celebrity firmament, maintains a strict code of secrecy regarding his family, which includes concealing the identity of his mother and sister. Apparently his mother’s neighbors don’t even know Yan is her son. He has never been photographed at his residence and his home address is kept secret from his colleagues.
But all that will probably change after his visa application — which included his flight number, passport photo and residential address — was leaked to the public, according to the Apple Daily.
Photo: Taipei Times
Stepping off an airplane in Shanghai to a crowd of screaming fans earlier this week, a visibly surprised Yan wondered aloud how fans knew about his arrival. Though clearly miffed by the exposure, Yan was still gracious enough to sign autographs for the assembled fans.
One celebrity whose family isn’t afraid of the spotlight is Selina Jen’s (任家萱). The starlet’s father, Jen Ming-ting (任明廷), dubbed “Father Jen” by the media, regularly comments on his daughter’s struggles to overcome serious burns incurred in an accident while filming a commercial in China last year.
The United Daily News recently reported that Jen’s hair is growing back, quoting her as saying every bit of growth reminds her of the pain she’s been through. Rumor has it that she will release an EP containing three new tracks and publish a book about her recovery process in October.
It seems as though publishing a memoir has become de rigueur among Taiwan’s celebrity firmament. Calvin Chen (辰亦儒) of boy band Fahrenheit (飛輪海) launched Journey Backwards: Calvin Chen’s Vancouver Foreign Study Diary on Monday, and judging by the title, it may be of use to those suffering from insomnia.
Pop Stop would prefer a tell-all memoir by shutterbug Edison Chen (陳冠希), complete with pictures. And on the topic of Chen, a report published earlier this month in Apple Daily saying Chen and old flame Cecilia Cheung (張柏芝) sat next to each other on a flight to Hong Kong continues to make headlines.
Chen, as if you needed reminding, left the entertainment biz in 2008 after explicit photos of him and several starlets, including Cheung, were stolen from his computer and posted on the Internet. He has gradually made a comeback over the past year but reportedly remained on bad terms with Cheung — until the “Airplane Incident” (機上事件), as Apple is now calling it.
At first, Cheung denied the report.
Chen confirmed it, however, stating that he had used his mobile phone to photograph himself with the Hong Kong beauty. But then Cheung’s father-in-law Patrick Tse (謝賢) refuted it again, asking, “Where’s the proof?” On Monday, Cheung’s manager basically admitted the meeting had taken place when he said it was only polite to acknowledge “someone you know on a flight.”
When Cheung was spotted at Taipei’s Xinyi Eslite on Wednesday shopping for her 31st birthday, her son Lucas in tow, the media, fixated as always, almost caused a riot trying to ask her if the “incident” was true. “Today is my birthday,” she said. “I don’t want to think about that.” Cheung was eventually escorted away by security.
Though Chen isn’t writing his memoirs — yet — he is in the process of penning a musical. Asked if he plans to include the sex scandal in the musical, he responded, “It’s not done yet,” leaving the paparazzi to wonder if he meant his sexual escapades or the script.
Last week saw the appearance of another odious screed full of lies from the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Ambassador to Australia, Xiao Qian (肖千), in the Financial Review, a major Australian paper. Xiao’s piece was presented without challenge or caveat. His “Seven truths on why Taiwan always will be China’s” presented a “greatest hits” of the litany of PRC falsehoods. This includes: Taiwan’s indigenous peoples were descended from the people of China 30,000 years ago; a “Chinese” imperial government administrated Taiwan in the 14th century; Koxinga, also known as Cheng Cheng-kung (鄭成功), “recovered” Taiwan for China; the Qing owned
In Taiwan’s politics the party chair is an extremely influential position. Typically this person is the presumed presidential candidate or serving president. In the last presidential election, two of the three candidates were also leaders of their party. Only one party chair race had been planned for this year, but with the Jan. 1 resignation by the currently indicted Ko Wen-je (柯文哲) of the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) two parties are now in play. If a challenger to acting Chairman Huang Kuo-chang (黃國昌) appears we will examine that race in more depth. Currently their election is set for Feb. 15. EXTREMELY
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They increasingly own everything from access to space to how we get news on Earth and now outgoing President Joe Biden warns America’s new breed of Donald Trump-allied oligarchs could gobble up US democracy itself. Biden used his farewell speech to the nation to deliver a shockingly dark message: that a nation which has always revered its entrepreneurs may now be at their mercy. “An oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy, our basic rights and freedoms,” Biden said. He named no names, but his targets were clear: men like Elon Musk
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