Taipei Zoo is not happy with an April Fools’ Day prank claiming that the two giant pandas in the zoo were disguised brown forest bears.
The Taipei Times ran an article on April 1st that the two pandas (a gift from the Chinese government) which arrived last December were actually “brown forest bears that had been dyed to create the panda’s distinctive black-and-white appearance.”
It’s said that a zoologist “became suspicious when the pandas began to spend almost all of their waking hours having sex. Pandas are notorious for their low libidos, which make them difficult to breed in captivity…”
The (real) zoo officials think that the prank was not funny at all, as the zoo was flooded with phone calls from as far as Japan, UK and Canada to ask about the matter. The zoo has sent in letters to ask the news portal to clear up the matter.
I’m surprised that people were fooled by the prank; isn’t the sex story a blatantly obvious joke? Well, obviously not obvious enough for some.
CowParade is an international public art exhibition which featured in major cities worldwide, where fibreglass sculptures of cows decorated by local artists would be distributed over the city centre. The cows are normally auctioned off after the exhibition at each city with proceeds donated to charity.
Cows… CowParade Taipei 2009 (Image by
Dicky)
Taipei City is the 65th venue for the parade; the exhibition has just ended in early February… a pretty fitting event to welcome the Chinese New Year of Ox.
A pair of pandas donated by China to Taiwan made their debut at Taipei City Zoo following an opening event by Taiwanese President Ma Ying Jiu on January 24th.
Taiwanese President with the first group of panda’s visitors (Image from
Xinhuanet)
The pandas, named Tuan-Tuan and Yuan-Yuan (Tuan-Yuan means Reunion in Chinese), arrived in Taiwan in late December 2008 and underwent a month long quarantine before being officially introduced to the public. A group of 500 orphans and underprivileged kids were the first group of visitors.
The panda diplomacy is seen as a huge leap of relationship between the two political entities. China first suggested the donation in 2005 but was rejected by Taiwan’s leadership back then, but the idea was embraced in 2008 with the change of Taiwanese presidency.
Some entertainment news from various sources…
Update – A new video is added to Korean girls group SNSD’s Goobne Chicken commercial.
Japan – Hiroshi Tamaki, Aoi Miyazaki (pic) and Ringo Shiina top an annual list for celebrities who look best in kimonos [Tokyograph]
Philippines – Chinese celebrity couple Dicky Cheung and Jess Zhang is getting married in Philippines on Monday (Jan 12) [Stareastasia]
S Korea – Actor Song Il-gook was temporarily unconscious after felling off his horse last Tuesday (Jan 6) while filming for drama “The Kingdom of the Winds” [Hanfever]
S Korea – Bae Yong Joon and Park Jin Young, two influential personalities of Korean entertainment industry, have come together to form a new company which aim at producing new stars of the future [Coolsmurf]
S Korea – “Devil” co-stars Joo Ji-hoon and Shin Mina reunite in “Kitchen” [K-popped]
S Korea – A fan made video showing his/her selection of top 20 K-pop songs in 2008; a bit biased, but pretty cool… [Youtube]
Taiwan – Boyband Fahrenheit promotes album in Ximending, Taipei [Stareastasia]
The 43rd Golden Bell Awards were presented in Taipei on Friday (Oct 31); Golden Bell is Taiwan’s most prestigious radio and television broadcasting awards.
“Fated to Love You” won the best drama series as expected; Ariel Lin was crowned the best actress (in drama series) with “They Kiss Again”; while Jacky Wu and A-Ya claimed the best variety show hosts award with “Guess Guess Guess”.
Other winners are relatively unknown; couldn’t recognise most of the names to be frank. Sharing a few red carpet pics (from Sohu) instead…
The emcees – Patty Ho, Jacky Wu and Tian Xin
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Interesting culture and places in Taipei, Taiwan; as featured in the 4th and 5th episode of The Amazing Race Asia (TARA) season 3.
Ximending, Taipei
Ximending is one of the most bustling areas in Taipei with a mixture of new and old culture.
You can find the latest trends and hype in Ximending… fashion, books, entertainment, cosplay, games etc; and on contrary also home to some of the oldest shops and restaurants in Taipei.
Ximending is also a popular place for celebrities to hold fans meeting or small concerts.
Ximending in a relatively quiet night (Image by
Kok)
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Some random photos from my Taiwan visit in April/May 2008…
The plane I was boarding from Kuala Lumpur to Taipei
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The 19th Golden Melody Awards, arguably the most prestigious recognition in Mandarin music industry, were presented in Taipei on July 5.
Taiwanese pop star Jay Chou was the biggest winner, bagging five awards, including song of the year and best composer awards.
Malaysian Gary Chau and Singaporean Tanya Chua claimed the best male/female Mandarin singers title respectively (pic); Tanya also bagged the best producer award.
Taiwanese band Sodagreen won the best group/band award; while Hong Kong star Karen Mok produced the biggest surprise of the night by winning album of the year award.
The awards presentation was shown live at my TV channel… but it was so so boring. The red carpet sucked, the hostesses sucked and the performers talked too much.
The funniest thing is seeing the celebrities pretending to be interested with what was happening on stage when most of them were probably bored to the max.
