So I’ve been all over ‘greater China’ - Taiwan, HK, and the mainland over the course of the last 13 years.
Taiwan from north to south, east to west, HK over two dozen times, China - Xiamen, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Changsha, Kunming, Shanghai, Fuzhou, etc.
In that time I’ve listened to and interacted with 1000s or tens of 1000s of Mandarin speaking people, listened to 1000s of hours of music and radio, not watched much TV or many movies though.
What I’d like to know though is - who would be considered an ‘elegant’ Mandarin speaker? Meaning, could you give me some examples (singers, actors, politicians, etc.) I could Google or YT to get an idea of what you think sounds like pleasant and polished Mandarin.
I hear all sorts of accents and variations of Mandarin, and was thinking - who is the Mandarin speaking person or people that have that elegant, soothing sound?
I found most of the main actors in Ang Lee’s Eat Drink Man Woman to have elegant Taiwan-style Mandarin (particularly the ones who play Jia-Chien, the airline executive, and her colleague Li Kai).
President Ma has a pretty elegant/high class sounding way of speaking when he’s coherent. That’s coming from a TI supporter so… it should mean something.
Tsai Ing-wen also has a very elegant Mandarin though without the snobbish sounding tone that Ma has.
I would call Ma’s Chinese refined, but not Tsai’s. She sounds like an academic, which obviously implies a certain level of refinement, but she doesn’t sound like an aristocrat like Ma does.
My go-tos would be 金城武 for men (though he’s a little Taiwan-tinted) and 湯唯 for women. But that’s just my totally subjective opinion. I like both of them a lot.
Yup, Tsai sounds like an academic. I guess whether something is elegant is very subjective to begin with. I’ve always considered something being more academic is more elegant. So to me, Tsai sounds refined and elegant. Ma’s pronunciation on the other hand, while being what most Taiwanese would describe as elegant, feels too pretentious and at times very condescending to me. When Ma tries to sound the most elegant, I feel it sounds as if he is pretending his listeners are than a bunch of kids.
I can’t really think of an actor or an actress’ Mandarin that I consider especially elegant. I think the problem might be there are so few Mandarin scripts that incorporates elegant/eloquent speeches.
I think Brigitte Lin (林青霞) sounds elegant in this film, although that’s not what she normally sounds like.
[quote=“hansioux”]President Ma has a pretty elegant/high class sounding way of speaking when he’s coherent. That’s coming from a TI supporter so… it should mean something.
Tsai Ing-wen also has a very elegant Mandarin though without the snobbish sounding tone that Ma has.[/quote]
I’ve always found Ma to have extremely poor public speaking skills…almost as if he wasn’t a native speaker. But then again, most politicians, whether Mainlander or Taiwanese, from that generation are extremely poorly spoken. The only exception I can think of is James Soong, if you ignore his accent.
For a pleasant sounding voice, you need to go to radio, especially the late-night hosts, although I couldn’t name any off the top of my head.
Soong is an amazing speaker. If anyone in the government had half a brain, they would have hired him as a spokesman or speech writer. Alas, political culture here rewards the loyal, not the talented.