Eason Chan’s concert during the Macau leg of his Fear and Dreams world tour got off on the wrong foot after audience members hollered at him to “speak Mandarin!” instead of Cantonese. The Cantopop star was in the middle of explaining the concept of his concert in Cantonese when he was rudely interrupted. “Nevermind if you can’t understand” he later rebuked.
The interruption didn’t go well with Eason who glared sideways before responding with a smile first in Thai and then later switching to English. “I love speaking whatever the way and the language I want” he said to cheers and applause from the rest of the audience. Taking the opportunity to knock some manners into the audience members, the pop star said they could’ve asked more politely and said “please speak in Mandarin” which sounds so much nicer. It’s not that he can’t speak Mandarin, he said. On the contrary, he can and speak it quite fluently too. But they could’ve said ‘Thank you’ or ‘please’ or ‘might we trouble you to’ ..” he grumbled.
“No no no, don’t get me wrong.” He clarified that if someone rudely told him to ‘Speak English!’, he said he’ll also tell them to shut up too. “Actually, never mind if you can’t understand.”
The incident sparked a lot of debate amongst Chinese Netizens online. On one hand, people said he can sing in Cantonese but he can chat with the audience in Mandarin since some people might not understand. On the other hand, many didn’t seem to find any fault with what he said. Since Cantonese remains one of the most widely spoken languages in Macau, it makes more sense to chat with his Macau fans in Cantonese. More importantly, some Netizens said it’s not too big of an ask for audiences to be more respectful and have a better attitude.
Source: 1
