I came across this the other day while looking for a collection of Eason Chan’s (陳奕迅 [Chén Yìxùn]) Mandarin songs:
陳奕迅Eason國語熱門串燒精選
I thought using 串燒 was such a fun way to refer to a selected compilation of his Mandarin songs. Here’s how it breaks down:
陳奕迅 (陈奕迅) [Chén Yìxùn]: Eason Chan
國語 (国语) [Guóyǔ]: Mandarin Chinese
熱門 (热门) [rèmén]: popular
And here it gets interesting:
串燒 (串烧) [chuànshāo]: literally this refers to food barbecued on a skewer, but here it is being used to refer to a collection of songs strung together in a compilation
精選 (精选) [jīngxuǎn]: carefully selected collection of something, in this case, Eason’s Mandarin songs
Anyway it’s also a great collection of his Mandarin songs, giving you over an hour’s worth of great background music to listen to.
Enjoy!
This skewer usage first appeared in the mid 1990s , as far as I remember.