Chen Hanwei Shares His 'English Fail' Stories, Once Thought 'Limousine' Was A Person
What did he say that made Fann Wong cry with laughter and what English faux pas of his did Zoe Tay tell every celeb in Singapore?
On June 12, Chen Hanwei, Shaun Chen, Zhang Yaodong and Christopher Lee got together to hold a late night live stream session on Instagram. The live stream started out as a way for them to connect with their fellow Malaysians (or anyone, really), who might be separated from their family due to travel restrictions, and eventually ended up as a no-holds-barred, tell-all, online “talk show”.
Topics during the three-hour live stream ranged from the type of celeb they dislike working with (no names were mentioned, unfortunately), to their brushes with the supernatural, and how Hanwei recently went out to run errands… only to realise he’d worn his boxers out when he reached home.
Three stories in particular, however, had everyone howling with laughter. And we have Hanwei to thank for it.
It all started when a fan requested for the quartet to try speaking in English for five minutes straight.
Somehow, it turned into Hanwei sharing these stories about his struggle with the English language. Not that we mind, of course.
The first two stories happened a number of years back, when Hanwei travelled to Thailand for a holiday with Fann Wong and celebrity hairstylist David Gan.
When they touched down at the airport, David said that he’d arranged for a limousine to pick all of them up. However, after a long wait, the limousine still had not arrived.
And so Hanwei asked: “When is this Mr Lim arriving?”.
Turned out, Hanwei was not familiar with the word 'limousine', and had thought that it was someone’s name. You know, Mr Lim Ou Sine.
That's not the only funny story from the same trip. Hanwei went on to share that he’d approached the staff at a “very high-class hotel” about a massage session the group had booked.
“I told Fann that I’ll handle it and I said to [the staff]: “Actually, we’ve already made a renovation…” Hanwei trailed off, with Chris, Shaun and Yaodong bursting into laughter immediately.
“I mixed up the words renovation, and reservation,” Hanwei chuckled, adding that Fann found it so funny she was practically crying with laughter .
The next story, is apparently a favourite of Hanwei’s celeb BFF, Zoe Tay.
According to Hanwei, it happened when he wanted to buy a luggage for his first overseas trip with Zoe.
Zoe had recommended Samsonite to Hanwei, but the latter had never heard of the brand. And he couldn’t remember the name, which was why he ended up asking for a “Samonet” luggage at the store.
Later, when Hanwei relayed that story to Zoe, she loved it so much that she “told everyone about it”.
“Now, some 30 years later, every single celeb in Singapore has heard the story at least once,” he said ruefully.
But it’s all good now, with Hanwei sharing that his English has improved by leaps and bounds since then.
“At least I can communicate in English when watching movies or chatting with my friends now,” he said.