Jacky Cheung wraps up Mainland China leg of his ½ Century Concert Tour

Source: Mingpao, Oriental Daily

Translation: llwy12@ http://asianfanatics.net





After 89 successful shows in Mainland China, Jacky Cheung wrapped up the Mainland leg of his ½ Century Concert Tour by holding his final show the day before yesterday at the Beijing Gongren Stadium. This week, he will complete the overseas leg of his tour with final shows in Malaysia and starting next Friday (May 18[sup]th[/sup]), he will return to Hong Kong for the ‘grand finale’ – the final 9 shows of his entire concert tour – which will take place at the Asia Expo World Arena. At the end of his tour, Jacky will have completed a total of 145 shows over a span of 1 ½ years, which breaks his previous record of 105 shows [2007’s Year of Jacky Cheung Concert Tour] as well as the record for all HK singers.

After the Beijing show, concert organizer Florence Chan held a celebratory gathering for all the workers and behind-the-scenes crew to commemorate the milestone. Normally, Jacky rarely attends celebratory events such as this, however since the Beijing show was his very last one in the Mainland, plus his concert tour is reaching its final ‘countdown’ stage, Jacky decided to attend the event so he could specially thank the workers as well as the concert sponsors in the Mainland. After hugging each of the workers who had helped out with his concert in the Mainland, Jacky went up on the stage and said to them: “Being able to achieve ..... _{(article cut to save bandwidth)}

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TOKYO: Johnny and Associates, the management agency behind popular J-pop boy bands like KAT-TUN, Arashi and SMAP, intends to form a new male idol group made up of Chinese members, reported Japanese media.

"I intend to create a Chinese idol group and also want to hold an audition in China," Johnny Kitagawa, founder and president of Johnny and Associates, told Japanese media on Thursday.

The 80-year-old music producer revealed that the new group's members will be in their teens, though he has not yet decided how many members the group will have.

Kitagawa said he plans to debut this new Chinese idol group, which will be a major part of his company's business strategy in Asia, sometime in November.

Founded in 1968, Johnny and Associates is one of the biggest entertainment companies in Japan, and has a reputation for creating highly successful boy bands by focusing on developing its artistes' as all-round entertainers instead of just musicians.

CNA

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Forbes Chinese Celebrity 100 List

Source: Forbes China

Forbes China has released their annual “Chinese Celebrity 100” list, which ranks the Chinese celebrities who had the most ‘outstanding’ performances in their respective disciplines (entertainment and the arts, sports, etc.)

Here are the criteria that Forbes used when compiling the list (based off of Forbes’ website):

.— Timeframe was from March 1[sup]st[/sup], 2011 to February 29[sup]th[/sup], 2012

.—As with prior years, Forbes based their rankings on 2 primary factors -- Wealth (Income) and Media Exposure -- as they believe that these 2 factors have a direct impact on a celebrity’s commercial worth.

.—2009 was the first year that Forbes started incorporating celebrities from Hong Kong and Taiwan into the list (prior to that, only celebrities from Mainland China were counted)

.—This year, there are a total of 43 celebrities on the list who are from HK or Taiwan and out of those, 5 of the celebrities entered the list for the first time.


Below is the complete list as posted on Forbes China’s website.

[TN: Please note that the below list consists of the artists rankings only – the more ‘detailed’ translation of the list that includes comments on each artist as well as analysis of the results from Forbes’ website will be posted up later on].

**** Due to formatting issues, I had to upload the list as 4 different images -- please click on each image for a larger, clearer view. Thanks!***

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01/05/2012
The Taiwanese band's first performance in Beijing was a huge success



It was a night to remember for fans of Taiwanese band Mayday over the weekend.
The five-man band held their world tour at the Beijing Arena recently, where the two-day concert attracted up to 200,000 fans. Mayday also specially built a 270m stage extension -- the longest in Asia -- for the show, which cost NT$260 million (approximately S$11 million).
To prepare for his run on the 270m stage extension, leader vocal Ashin had spent at least an hour on the treadmill; to which member Monster joked, "[If not,] he'd lose half of his life after running just one round!"
Opening their concert with the track '2012', the group used thick smoke to elude a Doomsday effect. When lead vocal Ashin began singing, emotions amongst the fans began to run high. The atmosphere in the stadium was overwhelming, after just three consecutive fast-tempo songs.
Mayday -- touted the finest Chinese rock band since their debut 13 years ago -- finally performed at the Beijing Arena for the first time, under the witness of fans from all over the world.
Ashin said, "We finally made it to the Beijing Arena on Apr 29, 2012. We'd like to thank everyone for being here to witness this special moment."
When the band performed 'Stubborn', the 100,000 fans in the audience waved a card, creating a "human rainbow" as guitarist Monster and Shi Tou played on a five-feet tall elevated stage.
Monster, who is afraid of heights, told himself, " can't be scared!"
As Beijng had been experiencing heavy rain in the past few days, the group's manager even went to the temple to pray for good weather.
It is believed that both Mayday and Lee Hom ..... _{(article cut to save bandwidth)}