Eason Chan, who announced on October 19 that the concert in Macau would be postponed for physical reasons, was asked to "say Chinese" before that. Although the heat of this event has passed, we should not simply boil it down to one or two conclusions. In fact, this incident has led us to think on three levels:
Third, in the context of Confucian culture that is not explicitly stipulated, can we be proud of our own dialect? At the same time, what is our original intention to like Eason Chan or Hong Kong Music? Why can Cantonese songs and Cantonese culture have a profound impact?
The concert in Macau was part of Eason Chan's original planned "Fear and Dreams World Tour". Due to the pandemic, the start of the concert was postponed by three years. Perhaps because of this postponement, Eason Chen showed his talent at this concert. In Hong Kong last December alone, he held 27 consecutive concerts, setting a record for the highest number of solo concerts.
The concert's global tour had 66 performances in eight stops, with Macau being the third from the bottom, followed by Shanghai and Chengdu. The Macau station was originally planned to hold nine performances spanning October 13 to 29.
During the interactive concert on the first night, Eason Chan had already spoken a large part of Cantonese. After everyone almost defaulted to communicating in Cantonese, he said: "Anyway, fear and dreams Thank you so much for participating. (Thank you for participating, quite simply, well, yes.) ）
2、“I love speaking whatever the way and language I want.” (I can speak whatever language I want.) ）；
3. Say in Mandarin: "It is better to say 'trouble you to say Chinese', but you 'are talking about Chinese'!" It's not that I don't know how to speak Chinese, I can speak Chinese and speak fluently, and you can ask 'thank you, please, trouble you'." It's rude for you to just shout 'Chinese'. ”
4. Say in Cantonese and English: "Nonono, don't get me wrong, if someone says 'Speak English' I'm 'Shut up'. (Actually, if you don't understand, forget it)"
The next day, the video was on the hot search, and the plot in the clip was even a little tense, causing dissatisfaction among many netizens in non-Cantonese-speaking areas. People started talking about why Eason Chan spoke Cantonese and English as a Chinese.
In fact, the Macao concert will be very friendly to the mainland audience, in addition to the Chinese songs that are already in the concert, such as "Brother and Sister", "Red Rose" and "Long Time No See", the two additional songs "Eliminated" and "Ten Years" are also Chinese songs.
During the concert on the second night, Eason Chan switched back and forth between Mandarin, Cantonese and English to interact with fans, translating every sentence in Mandarin, and laughing after speaking himself. "Please fasten your seatbelt, please fasten your seat belt, please fasten your D seat belt." Each sentence was said three times to show "recognition" and take into account the feelings of all fans, so as not to repeat the embarrassing scene of the first night. The evening's extra repertoire also featured two popular Chinese songs "Bicycle" and "The Lonely Brave".
The interactive chat session of Hong Kong singers at concerts has always been an integral part. After Huang Zihua transformed stand-up comedy into "Dong Du Xiao", the singers began to express their ideas and personalities in a humorous way, which became a bridge that fans talked about. At the concert, Chen Huixian once performed the classic dialogue of "Black Tea House", telling that she had feelings for a boy at the age of fifty, and when fans wanted to bless, she turned around and said that her partner "had a boyfriend", which caused laughter from the audience. Leslie Cheung also said at the concert: "If a friend asks you who are the Hong Kong singers in the 80s, you can mention me casually, I will be very satisfied." "Except for the exception of Faye Wong, who hardly speaks at concerts, singers like to chat with the audience at concerts.
Eason Chan is one of them, and as we described earlier, Eason Chan intentionally shared the significance of his concert. At that time, he was thanking everyone for their participation in his musical dreams, feeling that such a day was very beautiful, and cherishing this tour, for which he gave the utmost sincerity. And in such an atmosphere, the interrupted interaction is undoubtedly an unpleasant experience for him.
However, while the fans interrupted him, it was also the influence of the atmosphere created by Eason Chan. His impromptu chat had no subtitles, and fans in the mainland were curious to know what he was talking about. In the field, reactions tend to be concise and clear, with little emphasis on the word "please" or the use of "polite" language. Directly shouting the three words "speak Chinese" is the most direct reaction of those fans who are eager to understand the meaning of the idol's speech.
Of course, we cannot rule out that some of the people present may have some "booing" behavior. Perhaps there were also some audience members who thought that "they spent money, so they have the right to ask Eason Chen to speak Mandarin".
At the same time, it cannot be ruled out that some mainland fans have been "spoiled" by the singers. For example, at Xue Zhiqian's concert, as long as he said the wrong thing or the microphone ran out of power, fans would shout "refund tickets". At the concert in Lianyungang in Jiangsu at the end of May this year, he was even shouted ten times to refund the ticket. But Xue Zhiqian became more and more courageous, never expressed displeasure at the concert, and even shouted "refund" as a fixed interactive meme.
Due to the differences in their growing environment and cultural background, the status of singers is also different. Eason Chan had never experienced such a situation, so he responded in four languages, probably because he was in a state of excitement, from a state of excitement to a state of interruption, and the best way he could think of to mitigate was to respond in multiple languages.
According to research by Professor Chu Yiuwei of the School of Chinese of the University of Hong Kong, Eason Chan may be the last popular and infectious superstar in the Hong Kong music scene. Eason Chan himself was born in Hong Kong, grew up in Hong Kong, and later went to school in England, he even learned French, Spanish, and also learned German, Italian, Latin and so on when he sang... His Chinese is also known as "speaking standard". It can be said that in terms of language, he is a little genius. Talented people tend to be a little conceited and sensitive to imperative "speaking Chinese," and as he puts it, he will be upset if someone says "Speak English." So he cares about attitudes, not the use of language, because he can use any language at his fingertips.
When it comes to "speaking Mandarin", it can't help but remind people of the funny clip in "Dong Du Detective": "You don't care about Mandarin, how do you do my hand?" ”
Some fans struggled to understand Cantonese, saying: "This is something I really wanted to do when I was in San Francisco (dog head expression), and he didn't speak a word of Mandarin [at the time]. ”
Some netizens also think that Eason Chen is very arrogant: "(Eason Chen) Don't be so pretentious, these fans are just coquettish and active in this atmosphere, you are so real!" Generally, people on the stage will jokingly defuse, but he deliberately proposed it for a targeted manner, which shows the arrogance and contempt in his bones. ”
Of course, some people start from the perspective of "Mandarin confidence": "There is a question, are there many people who can't understand Cantonese at the concert or more people who can't understand Mandarin?" Isn't Mandarin the common language of Chinese world communication? When is it the turn of the local dialect? He doesn't think that the following are all Hong Kong and Macau locals, or he can't speak Mandarin. ”
It is understandable that people want to understand the interactive content of the singer, but insisting on grasping the question of "native Cantonese speakers speaking Cantonese" is really exaggerating the problem itself, and it is not even ruled out that some people deliberately raise the matter of Mandarin to the level of "whether Hong Kong people love the country or not".
For example, someone liked the comment: "Cantonese is also a language of China. There is no doubt that Chinese includes Cantonese. Some people also liked it: "Eason Chen said very well...'I hope to have a better attitude when making requests'... You have to be polite when watching a concert. "Support Eason Chan's view. Some fans said that when a Hong Kong journalist interviewed Eason Chan and asked him to speak Cantonese, he insisted on saying Chinese. This matter is also worth mentioning.
Music critics were dumbfounded and analyzed that the public opinion environment around the performance has become worse and worse over the past year, which is suffocating. Some viewers have judged the playlist and singing time, and have even been accused of disrespecting the audience's right to record when singers (such as Qingmine) express that they do not like the audience's right to record with their mobile phones everywhere. Now, this anger has even spread to the language choice of the interactive part of the concert, which is really ridiculous.
Another music critic, Love Diren, suggested, "In the singer's home turf, fans should be free to follow the owner; In the home of fans, singers should more or less follow the customs, although this is not a mandatory rule, but it is indeed an unspoken rule in the concert industry. ”
In any case, statistics from the Centre for Hong Kong and Macau Studies at Tsinghua University show that 85.7% of Macau's population uses Chinese and Cantonese as their daily language, 4% of the population uses the Hokkien dialect, 3.2% of the population uses Putonghua, and 2.7% of the population speaks other Chinese dialects. Portuguese is spoken by 0.6% of the population, while the rest of the population speaks English (1.5%), Tagalog (Philippines, 1.3%), and other languages.
In Macau, Cantonese is the most spoken dialect. Therefore, Eason Chan's speaking Cantonese in Macau itself is in line with local laws and social customs.
Dr. Leung Shuwen from the School of Chinese of the University of Hong Kong concludes in her article "On the Language Development of Macao under "One Country, Two Systems": "Macao's increasingly international society and more frequent exchanges with Chinese mainland have further complicated the situation of being already multilingual and multidialect. The 'four languages' – Cantonese, Mandarin, Portuguese and English – will become the four most important languages (or dialects).
Macao's language planning should respect the current situation in Macao, and it is not appropriate to raise the status of a certain language or dialect through legislation, but should allow the 'four languages' to develop naturally and live in harmony through language education and cultural infiltration. ”
When the Guangdong UP main video active on station B reads, almost every barrage will have "speaking human words". At first, he would reply "why is the anger so heavy", but then gradually got used to it and stopped replying.
Many UP masters who interpret Hong Kong movies find that if they use Cantonese soundtracks in their interpretations, they will also be scolded. In the end, they had to split the video into Chinese and Cantonese, or simply abandon the soundtrack.
Some Cantonese people do not understand why, Sichuanese, Shanghainese, Wenzhou, many people do not understand, but when Cantonese is spoken, it is associated with "regional discrimination".
In September 2021, Southern Metropolis Daily N Video launched the "Cantonese Pronunciation Challenge" on the streets of Guangzhou, hoping to test their mastery of Cantonese pronunciation by allowing the new generation in Guangzhou to read rare words in Cantonese. It turned out that very few young people were able to read it right at once.
A few years ago, when interviewing primary school students in Guangzhou, some self-media found that some Guangzhou children could not speak Cantonese and were unwilling to learn, and felt that Cantonese was "purr".
The status of Cantonese is declining, while the spread of Hong Kong music in the mainland is on the rise. From the popular song "Wild Wolf Disco" sung by Uncle Gem, sung in non-standard Northeastern Cantonese: "The flower in my heart / I want to take you home / In that late night bar / It doesn't matter if it's true or not", to the cover of Yang Qianwei's "Kiss Everywhere" on Douyin, Chen Huixian's unpopular song "Love Knot" became popular on the short video platform, everyone can sing: "If you lower the glass, please kneel for me". Hong Kong Music has achieved a renaissance in the mainland. In contrast, the popularity of new songs in Hong Kong has declined every year since 2000 and is now rare.
Danner once stated in "The Philosophy of Art": "The rise and fall of human spiritual culture can be found in the natural environment and social environment. "Every period produces a state of mind, followed by a number of works of art that correspond to this state of mind... The environment that is brewing now will surely produce its unique works, just as the environment of the past gave birth to the works of the past.
Before the advent of Hong Kong music, musicians in Hong Kong were proud of English and Chinese songs (the introduction of Shanghai culture). Until the 70s, with the rise of Hong Kong's economy in Asia, Hong Kong's local public facilities were perfected, the economy prospered, and Hong Kong people became rich, and a group of singers such as Hui Guanjie began to use Cantonese slang to create new song forms, thus giving birth to Hong Kong music. In the 80s and 90s, Hong Kong music gradually turned to the use of elegant lyrics, creating musical genres adapted to the emotional life of young people, these songs are subtle, soft, passionate but not too intense, and the melody and rhythm are more in line with the characteristics of pop and singing. This kind of music is loved in Chinese regions around the world.
Cantonese songs should have been the pride of Chinese, but they were deeply influenced by Confucian culture in Chinese mainland. Especially in the process of communication, we often pursue the expression of "modesty" and "self-deprecation". For the expression of "personality", we often feel "unaccustomed" to natural reactions. Therefore, there is a "sense of conflict" between "Mandarin" and the Cantonese dialect of regional superiority. Actually, there is no need to be angry about not speaking Cantonese. After all, Cantonese is not difficult, everyone can speak it, such as: cluck cluck has cluck cluck (each country has its own national anthem).
The interactive part of the concert has always been part of the tradition of Hong Kong singers. During the interactive session of Eason Chan's Macau concert, the real reason fans shouted "speak Chinese" or "speak Mandarin" was not necessarily because the fans were rude, but more likely because they were eager to understand what Eason Chan was saying. In terms of language, out of the immediacy of conveying information, people are more inclined to shout "speak Chinese" than to consider reality.
Eason Chan was interrupted by his excitement at the time, and his misunderstanding of fans led him to think that fans were rude, from "in fact, if you don't understand" to "Shut up", his response was somewhat gunpowder. Soon, however, he began speaking Mandarin again. However, after the video was uploaded to the Internet, it was deliberately amplified by the nature of the incident itself, and began to "try" Eason Chan, and even raised the issue to the issue of political position.
In any case, this event has a positive meaning, it makes us think about three levels: can there be equality between fans and singers? On which boundaries should we communicate? Should we respect the regional culture and dialect of each region, or actively promote "please speak Mandarin"? Third, in the context of Confucian culture that is not explicitly stipulated, can we be proud of our own dialect? At the same time, what is our original intention to love Eason Chan or Hong Kong music? Why can Cantonese songs and Cantonese culture have a profound impact?
Finally, we need to recognize that the status of Cantonese is declining. At the same time, the spread of Hong Kong music in the mainland is on the rise. The dilemma of Cantonese dialects is not just a recent problem, but a long-term development trend. In any case, we should treat various dialects and regional cultures with tolerance and respect, so that we can understand each other and appreciate the charm of music together.