Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has somehow managed to find the time to improve his spoken Chinese while managing one of the largest social media platforms in the world. A 22-minute transcript-less inspirational speech delivered entirely in Chinese at Tsinghua University in Beijing elicited favorable comments from Chinese netizens, who said that despite Zuckerberg's frequent pauses and less-than-biaozhun pronunciation, it was a solid attempt.
“Although it was tough for me to understand what he said because of his strong accent, I really appreciate his efforts and ability,” the Wall Street Journal quotes one Weibo user as saying.
Zuckerberg posted a subtitled video of the speech on his Facebook page.
This is not the first time Zuckerberg has revealed his love of all things China. Last December, it emerged that Zuckerberg had bought several copies of his good friend Xi Jinping’s The Governance of China book for his colleagues. This is also not the first time he has busted out his Chinese skills: he wished the nation a happy Chinese New Year in a video message in February and last month bragged about holding a conversation "entirely" in Chinese with Xi in Seattle.
Zuckerberg’s speech cited Chinese companies Alibaba and Xiaomi as sharing Facebook's goal of "connecting people," which was Zuckerberg's motivation for founding the company in 2004. “At the time, there were so many websites on the Internet and you could find almost everything—news, music, books, things to buy—but there was no service to help us find the most important thing to our lives: people,” he said. Let's hope Zuckerberg's Chinese charm offensive pays off and we finally get Facebook access in a country of over 700 million Internet users.
For the poor VPN-less souls reading this from behind the Great Firewall, here's a video of the speech:
[Image via Forbes]
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