Taiwanese bestselling writer and film director Giddens Ko (柯景騰), also known as Jiu Ba-dao (九把刀), admitted yesterday that he cheated on his girlfriend, after he was photographed entering a motel with another woman.
“In the world of love, I am not a good man. I am terrible,” Ko said at a press conference after Chinese-language Next Magazine yesterday published the pictures of him and the female, a local TV station reporter.
Ko said he had apologized to his girlfriend, but had not been forgiven.
However, Ko also expressed grievances, saying he felt awkward having to explain his private life to the public because he had been followed by paparazzi.
However, such embarrassment might be what he deserves because of his infidelity, he said.
“I feel pained and awful,” he added.
The 36-year-old is best known for his novel You Are the Apple of My Eye (那些年,我們ㄧ起追的女孩).
In 2011, a movie based on the book became a blockbuster in Taiwan, while in Hong Kong it surpassed the 2004 Hong Kong film Kung Fu Hustle (功夫) to become the highest-grossing Chinese-language movie in the territory’s history.
In June, popular Taiwanese cartoonist “Wan Wan” (彎彎), who had a guest role in You Are the Apple of My Eye, also issued a public apology after an extramarital affair was revealed by Next Magazine, which published photographs of her kissing and embracing a fellow blogger, Huang Chien-ming (黃建銘).
Foreign tourists who purchase a seven-day Taiwan Pass are to get a second one free of charge as part of a government bid to boost tourism, the Tourism Administration said yesterday. A pair of Taiwan Passes is priced at NT$5,000 (US$156.44), an agency staff member said, adding that the passes can be used separately. The pass can be used in many of Taiwan’s major cities and to travel to several tourist resorts. It expires seven days after it is first used. The pass is a three-in-one package covering the high-speed rail system, mass rapid transport (MRT) services and the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle services,
Drinking a lot of water or milk would not help a person who has ingested terbufos, a toxic chemical that has been identified as the likely cause of three deaths, a health expert said yesterday. An 83-year-old woman surnamed Tseng (曾) and two others died this week after eating millet dumplings with snails that Tseng had made. Tseng died on Tuesday and others ate the leftovers when they went to her home to mourn her death that evening. Twelve people became ill after eating the dumplings following Tseng’s death. Their symptoms included vomiting and convulsions. Six were hospitalized, with two of them
DIVA-READY: The city’s deadline for the repairs is one day before pop star Jody Chiang is to perform at the Taipei Dome for the city’s Double Ten National Day celebrations The Taipei City Government has asked Farglory Group (遠雄集團) to repair serious water leaks in the Taipei Dome before Friday next week, Taipei Mayor Chiang Wan-an (蔣萬安) said yesterday, following complaints that many areas at the stadium were leaking during two baseball games over the weekend. The dome on Saturday and Sunday hosted two games in tribute to CTBC Brothers’ star Chou Szu-chi (周思齊) ahead of his retirement from the CPBL. The games each attracted about 40,000 people, filling the stadium to capacity. However, amid heavy rain, many people reported water leaking on some seats, at the entrance and exit areas, and the
BIG collection: The herbarium holds more than 560,000 specimens, from the Japanese colonial period to the present, including the Wulai azalea, which is now extinct in the wild The largest collection of plant specimens in Taiwan, the Taipei Botanical Garden’s herbarium, is celebrating its 100th anniversary with an exhibition that opened on Friday. The herbarium provides critical historical documents for botanists and is the first of its kind in Taiwan, Taiwan Forestry Research Institute director Tseng Yen-hsueh (曾彥學) said. It is housed in a two-story red brick building, which opened during 1924. At the time, it stored 30,000 plant specimens from almost 6,000 species, including Taiwanese plant samples collected by Tomitaro Makino, the “father of Japanese botany,” Tseng said. The herbarium collection has grown in the century since its