Sounds of Cantonese vs Mandarin?

If you hear Vietnamese, you would find Cantonese is closer to it than Thai, because Vietnam is closer to south China where Cantonese speakers live. Mandarin sounds smoother and has 4 tones, Cantonese sounds more blunt and comes in 9 tones. Mandarin sounds cliche to you because this is the official language of China and happens to appeal to your hearing. It is in fact one of the hundreds of Chinese dialects and was chosen to represent the Chinese language officially only in 1954. Even if it doesn't sound as nice, Thai will sound cliche to Thai people and Cantonese will sound cliche to its native speakers.