Expat from Malaysia savors the art of speech

When 38-year-old Chinese-Malaysian Gu Chian-peow arrived in China for the first time in 1999, he was excited to hear numerous people around him speak so naturally a language that his ancestors had fought so hard to pass down.

Fifteen years later, he has been able to impress and inspire millions of people in China, the homeland where his grandfather never had a chance to return, with a language he thought he had "just enough for daily use".

In the second season of Super Speaker, a popular public speech TV show aired on Beijing Satellite Channel, Gu won third place. He says he didn't expect to go that far, even though he made quite an impression with his debut show - passionately describing the hardships generations of Chinese immigrants in Malaysia had gone through to carry on the right to teach and speak Mandarin.

The main reason he came to the show, Gu says, "is to intro-duce to Chinese people the real life of Chinese communities in Malaysia".

Gu's grandfather went to the country from Kaiping in Guangdong province. The old man has since strictly maintained a Chinese way of life in his family, including requiring all family members to speak their hometown dialect.

Gu became obsessed with Mandarin during the last year of primary school when he came upon a recording of Ma Ji, China's most renowned star of traditional Chinese comedic performance xiang sheng, or cross-talk. His interest evolved into an academic passion in middle school, when he started to participate in Chinese speech and debate contests, and finally led him to choose Chinese as a major at the University of Malaya.

On behalf of his university, he participated twice in the International Varsity Debate (in Mandarin) held in Singapore, where his team won the championship in 2001. As the most outstanding debater on his crew at the time, Gu has since became well-known in the Chinese debate circle and also in Malaysia's Chinese-language media, where he has served as a famous news anchor and game-show host.

Unlike many contestants in Super Speaker, who try to impress with personal sentiments, Gu was appreciated by audiences for his rational comments of China's social events. He says his debate and media experiences have trained him to become a "detached observer" of the society.

"It's more challenging for me to speak about my feelings and emotions," he says. "Since I've had this rare chance to speak about my true thoughts, I've grabbed it to share my perspective as a foreigner on Chinese society."

Gu recently worked as a manager for a racing circuit in Zhuhai for two years. During his spare time, he liked to call some of his old debate buddies to carry on his "life-long interest". He and his friends have since joined video website iQiyi as consult-ants to produce a talk show called You Can You Bibi, on which contestants divide up to debate a given topic in each episode. The show has quickly become an online hit, with its most-watched episode being viewed over 10 million times.

Gu says he is glad to see producers showing an increasing interest in debate as a new element of TV entertainment.

"Debate promotes rational thinking and encourages people to listen to different perspectives before taking a stand," he says. "It thus makes them more tolerant and look at the society in a more calm and objective way."

hanbingbin@chinadaily.com.cn