Watch Girl

My niece came back from Switzerland the other day with a magazine featuring watches, called  Kirdhofer or something like that. It was not really surprising because Switzerland is synonymous with watches but what surprised me more was besides Nicole Kidman promoting  Omega watches, there was a page of  this sweet-looking oriental girl called Chi Ling Lin in the magazine. That was Taiwan's Taipei born Lin Chi Ling, of course, the supermodel who was a phenomenon in Asia (inset). She is after all a spokesman for Longines, the luxury watch founded by Auguste Agassiz. Contrary to Western practice, for  the Chinese, the family name is always written first followed by the name of the person; so Chi Ling Lin does not really immediately ring a bell unless, Lin, the family name comes first.  Lin Chi Ling became the focus of attention in 2002 after she modeled for a television advertisement in Hong Kong. She became the hostess of a fashion program on Shanghai Oriental Television and her face began to don giant billboards.  The Lin Chi-ling Phenomenon or the Taiwanese craze for supermodels called  Lín Zhìlínɡ xiànxiànɡ 林志玲現象 thus started. Back here in Taiping,  once I heard hat she had been to town. This piece of news  probably was not reported in the media. The beauty who had been dubbed  The First Face of Taiwan had been said to be on a private visit. It seemed that she had been attending the wedding of a relative here...mmm... you'd probably take that with a grain of salt.

More of Lin Chi Ling....