Evan gets antsy about NS stint
Taiwan singer hopes celeb status won’t make him a target in the army
By Gan Ling Kai
December 29, 2009
PRETTY boy Evan Yo is getting pretty ‘kan cheong’ (Hokkien for nervous).
MUMMY’S BOY: Evan at Swissotel the Stamford yesterday. His mother wonders if he can cope with the one-year military stint.
TNP PICTURE: GAVIN FOO
The singer-songwriter is afraid he may ‘kena tekan’ (Malay for being punished) by seniors in the army if they think he is a snobbish celebrity.
So he is planning to be humble and not ‘gei kiang’ (Hokkien for being a smart alec).
Of course, Evan didn’t use those words and he is not going to do national service here, but you get the drift.
The 23-year-old, who lives in Taiwan, will enlist in the army there next month. National service is compulsory for young men in Taiwan too.
The New Paper caught up with Evan, whose Chinese name is Tsai Min-you, at Swissotel the Stamford yesterday after he arrived to promote his third album, Loneliness. He also performed at mando-pop club Dragonfly at St James Power Station yesterday.
‘I won’t be able to log in to Facebook or MSN (chat). I will die,’ he said, almost seriously, of his enlistment.
‘And I will soon have to wake up at 6am and sleep by 9pm. That’s totally opposite of what I’m doing now.’
His mum, a teacher in her 50s, is concerned about whether he can cope with the one-year military training.
‘I haven’t been doing housework all these years, but soon, I will have to wash my own dishes,’ he said.
Chin-ups
But Evan is confident of coping with the fitness regime. ‘I can do six chin-ups,’ he said.
Only six? We asked in disbelief.
After all, he has flaunted his pectoral muscles in the Loneliness music video, in which he plays a school swimmer (wearing only trunks, of course) moping over his teen sweetheart, who ran away.
‘I have been so busy promoting my album that I’ve no time to exercise. My muscles have sagged like a deflated balloon,’ he explained.
Evan has been singing professionally since he was a music major in the National Taiwan Normal University.
His debut album was titled 19 (his age when the album was released). Last year, he cut his second album, titled, no, not 21, but Search.
He explained that he has found his identity as a singer and ‘can now express himself freely’.
He also found his first million new Taiwan dollars ($44,000) performing his own music, hosting TV shows and acting in idol drama Kendo Love.
Even before he graduated in June, his classmates saw him as a pop star.
‘My juniors (especially the girls, he confirmed later) would come to me for my autograph,’ he said.
Does he regret not having time to consolidate his music career and find a girlfriend, we asked Evan.
‘I believe military life will help me and my music to mature,’ he said.
But he was upset when the Taiwanese media recently slammed his song, Hey! – from his latest album – for ‘copying the style of US singer Chris Brown’.
‘That’s not true,’ he insisted. ‘In fact, I started taking note of his music only after such reports.’
It’s not the first time he has been compared with another pop star.
Jacky Wu touted him as the ‘little Jay Chou’ when the album 19 was released.
The popular Taiwanese TV host had taken Evan under his wing when the latter won a singing contest at age 14.
Evan is now managed by Sony Music Entertainment, but he said he still keeps in touch with Jacky.
‘It was a privilege to be compared with Jay, a mega pop star. But now, I’m happy that audiences are recognising me for who I really am,’ he said.
The NewPaper