New Delhi, October 24 – Four years ago Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg said that he was learning Mandarin. On Wednesday, he did a Q&A session at a Chinese University, speaking for 30 minutes in almost fluent Mandarin.
In the Q&A session, in which he even joked in Mandarin, Zuckerberg spoke about Chinese companies, history of Facebook and the work Internet.Org was doing to improve access to the web across the world.
The video of the Q&A session was later posted by Zuckerberg on his Facebook page. “On Wednesday I did my first ever public Q&A in Chinese at Tsinghua University in Beijing! We discussed connecting the world, Internet.org, innovation and the early days of Facebook,” he wrote.
“Earlier this week I joined the Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management Advisory Board. Tsinghua is an amazing centre of learning and research, and it has been inspiring to be with so many talented future Chinese leaders.”
Zuckerberg reportedly said that he was learning Mandarin so that he could communicate better with parents of his Chinese American wife Priscilla Chan. While his effort to master the local language has won a lot of praise in Chine, it is unlikely that Mandarin-speaking Zuckerberg will be able to convince the Chinese government to unblock Facebook.
The world’s biggest social networking website is banned in China since 2008 and unless something significantly in the way Facebook processes user-generated content or in the Chinese government policy, the ban is likely to stay.
-INDIA TODAY
