China applauds politely as Zuckerberg slowly explains heâd like to âsex dump grandmaâ
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has received polite applause from a Chinese university audience, despite accidentally telling them in Mandarin that he would like to do rude things to their grandmothers. The Facebook boss was talking to students at the Tsinghua University School of Economics and Management, and was keen to show how much Mandarin Chinese he had learnt since his pledge to learnÂ the language in 2010. As one Chinese audience member explained, âMandarin is not easy, and mistakes from Westerners are common â but how he referred to his time in Beijing as an âendlessÂ miserable sweaty bum chainâ Iâll never know.â âAnd I donât even know what âsex dump grandmaâ actually means, but I hope he plans to buy her dinner first.â âThere were a few other funny ones, like how the way he tried to describe China âa land of culture and historyâ, and instead his accent made it sound like he called China âan absolute f*cking goldmineâ â that was hilarious.â Another student in the audience said the despite his errors, they were all pleased to see him make the effort to court China. They told us, âAt one point he was asked about plans for Facebook in China, and he said âYou are all sheep to me, sheep with dollar signs on their back that I have every intention of chasing like a dogâ.â âIâve no idea what he was actually trying to say, probably some strange Western idiom, but it was clearly a hilarious mis-translation.â âThese things can happen, and we appreciate the effort â he is a funny man!â