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Eason Chan rebukes Chinese fans demanding he speak Mandarin at Macau concert

'I love speaking whatever way and language I want,' says Chan

By Keoni Everington, Taiwan News (2023/10/20)

Well, it looks as though we are having a clash of languages — Mandarin vs. Cantonese — right in the heartland of Cantonese.

TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Hong Kong singer Eason Chan (陳奕迅) rebuffed demands by Chinese fans to speak Mandarin instead of Cantonese at a concert in Macau.

On Oct. 13, Chan kicked off his "Fear and Dreams" concert tour in Macau. As is often the case with his concerts, Chan began to casually chat in Cantonese with the audience between songs.

During the show, several Chinese audience members started to shout and boo. They repeatedly interrupted him demanding that he "Speak Mandarin!"

At one point, Chan paused and glared sideways at the audience in silence. He then smiled and uttered a greeting in Thai before switching to English to say, "I love speaking whatever way and language I want," sparking applause and cheers from the audience.

Chan then took the opportunity to educate the fans on courtesy by saying in Mandarin, "You could say, 'Could you please speak Mandarin,' that would sound better." He said that when someone demands he "Speak Mandarin," it's not that he's unable to speak the language, but he is reluctant because of how the request was made.

He said the preferable way to ask would be to add a "thank you, please, or could you" to the question. Breaking into a combination of Engish and Mandarin, Chan said "No, don't get me wrong. If someone says, 'Speak English!' to me, I just say 'Shut up!' If you don't understand, that's fine."

Chan began to speak in Cantonese again and used the late British singer David Bowie as an example. "If David Bowie came to perform, would you also ask him to speak Mandarin or Cantonese?" Out of frustration at the situation, Chan said "It's strange, it really is!"

After venting his frustration, Chan said that he should put his earpiece back in and focus on performing rather than lecturing. After the incident, "Eason Chan was asked to speak Mandarin during his Macau concert" became the top trending search topic on Weibo on Oct. 14, which resulted in heated discussions among netizens.

…

In a related discussion thread on Weibo, some netizens asked, "Cantonese is also a language of China, why can't it be spoken?" Many netizens said that Chan spoke very well and argued that "you have to be polite while watching a concert," Others emphasized that Cantonese is the official language of Hong Kong and Macao, and "it is natural to speak Cantonese" in those places.

The final paragraph is especially telling.

The article includes a video of Chan at the concert speaking various languages (including Thai and English), with the crowd loving and hating it.

Why should anyone expect a native Cantonese speaker to speak Mandarin in Macau?

AntC:  "I'm surprised he can 'get away' with speaking Cantonese anywhere in a public concert."

 

Selected readings

• "Forcing Mandarin on Hong Kong" (1/27/18)
• "Spoken Hong Kong Cantonese and written Cantonese" (8/29/13)
• "Speak Cantonese" (6/10/16)
• "Cantonese: still the main spoken language of Hong Kong" (6/1/17)
• "Cantonese is not dead yet" (6/9/17)
• "Heavily accented Mandarin" (9/22/23)
• "Hong Kong Cantonese in jeopardy" (9/19/21)
• "Language notes from Macao and Hong Kong" (6/22/14)
• "The Future of Cantonese" (5/27/18)
• "The future of Cantonese, part 2" (6/10/18)
• "Public Romanization in Canton" (5/30/20) — "Speak Mandarin; Write Standard [i.e., simplified] Characters"
• "A quick exit for Cantonese" (7/22/15) — how hard it is nowadays to find a decent elementary school in Hong Kong that offers instruction in Cantonese, rather than in Mandarin
• "Cantonese v Mandarin: When Hong Kong languages get political", by Juliana Liu Hong, Kong correspondent, BBC News

[Thanks to AntC]

October 31, 2023 @ 4:34 pm · Filed by Victor Mair under Language and politics, Topolects

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