Bill Gates has always been on the techy side. Aside from being the co-founder of technology giant Microsoft, Gates is also into using other services and he just ventured on using the popular Chinese messaging and chatting app, the WeChat.
On February 14, The Verge reported that Gates just created his official WeChat account. In the launching of his WeChat account, Gates satisfied Chinese fans with his attempt on speaking Mandarin. He flawlessly said "ni hao" which is "hello" in Mandarin with his friendly smile. His introduction video on WeChat also welcomed his fans and followers.
However, his Mandarin in the said WeChat video caught the scrutiny of some netizens. According to an article by the Wall Street Journal, China's official Global Times newspaper remarked Gates' pronunciation and mentioned that it is nothing compared to Facebook's Mark Zuckerberg. Some netizens also commented in the video and compared his English and Mandarin speaking tones.
After hearing this, some supporters found Gates' Reddit question and answer series where Gates praised Zuckerberg for his fluency with the language. Gates then added that he regret not knowing any foreign language and he admitted that it made him feel stupid. He then added that he actually learned Latin and Greek way back in high school where he garnered straight A's but he then wished that he could have learned something much exotic like Arabic or Chinese.
Some people might be wondering, what's all this fuss about Gates' WeChat account. Well, it's actually an attempt to promote Gates' blog on WeChat which is coined to be "gatesnotes". This blog is actually a Chinese version of Gates' existing blog with the same name.
Social media experts saw this move by Gates as a strategic one for Gates' influence expansion in China as both Facebook and Twitter are banned in China due to its great firewall. Fans of Gates must have noted that Gates isn't new to Chinese technology such as WeChat. In 2010, he actually opened his official Weibo account, the Chinese version of Twitter.
