Mark Zuckerberg gave his first ever speech in Chinese at Tsinghua University in Beijing on Oct. 24. The Facebook CEO talked about needing a strong sense of mission to change the world.
The message drew into three themes: believing in your mission, caring more deeply than anyone else and always looking ahead.
"This was also my first real speech in any language sharing how I started thinking about Facebook's mission, what has kept me going through challenging times and what our mission means now looking ahead for our community of 1.5 billion people," Zuckerberg shared on a Facebook post about the experience.
A month prior to the speech, Zuckerberg was able to meet China's President Xi Jinping at the eighth annual U.S.-China Industry forum, held in Seattle.
The meeting enabled technology company CEOs to meet with government officials from China and the U.S. and talk about issues as regards the future of the industry.
"On a personal note, this was the first time I've ever spoken with a world leader entirely in a foreign language. I consider that a meaningful personal milestone. It was an honor to meet President Xi and other leaders," the 31-year old entrepreneur said.
Zuckerberg traveled to Beijing as a newly appointed member of Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management's advisory board.
To kick off his role, he gave a 30-minute speech to the university. The whole message was conducted in Mandarin.
Zuckerberg received various feedback for this milestone.
What better place to turn to for reactions than the platform that the man built himself?
"Mark Zuckerberg speaks mandarin chinese as a second language better than some americans speak their native english," wrote Justin Cordero in the comments section.
"Who saw this video and decided their whole life was clearly a vacant waste when a guy as busy as Mark is able to learn a new and complicated language, while in the meantime you've learnt nothing new since graduating from college?" Rana Al Tajir added.
"This is great. When you use another language to reach a new audience, it helps ideas to transcend cultural boundaries in a way that a translation tends not to do. Very admirable!" said Christa J. Laser.
Meanwhile blogger Isaac Stone Fish was less than impressed at the tech mogul's attempt.
"It's hard not to see a patronizing note in the Chinese audience's reaction to Zuckerberg's Mandarin. To borrow from Samuel Johnson's quip, he was like a dog walking on its hind legs: It wasn't done well, but it was a surprise to see it done at all," he said.
Zuckerberg, who is married to Priscilla Chan, set himself the goal of learning Mandarin in 2010, in part so that he could communicate with his Chinese relatives.
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