Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg really showed his interest in China this week after impressing an audience of students at Tsinghua University in Beijing by speaking and answering questions in Mandarin.

Although Zuckerberg has wanted to enter the market for a long time, the social networking site has been banned from the country since 2009.

Zuckerberg described his Chinese as “horrible” but insisted that he wanted to speak it during the session, to which he received a round of applause and laughter.

During the session Wei Xiaoliang, a Facebook employee and the forum facilitator asked Zuckerberg what Facebook’s plans were for China which he hoped “will not get [him] fired.”

“We are already in China,” Zuckerberg said in Chinese Mandarin. “We help Chinese companies gain customers abroad.”

“We want to help the rest of the world connect to China,” he added.

When asked why he had chosen to learn the language Zuckerberg gave three reasons. The first was because his wife Priscilla Chan is from a Chinese family. The second and third were because he liked Chinese culture and he also enjoys a challenge.