白猫还是黑猫

[daveonhols]

Hello,

My teacher introduced to me this famous Deng Xiao Ping quote today -

"不管是白猫还是黑猫，能抓住老鼠就是好猫"

As a complete coincidence on the very next page my Chinese text book has this sentence as well, for some multiple choice question about "不管"

Anyway I was curious to read more about Deng Xiao Ping, and looked him up on Wikipedia - seems that the quote they have for this is quite different to that provided by my teacher and textbook! They have

"不管黑猫白猫,能捉老鼠就是好猫"

So I was wondering, can anyone tell me what the quote is supposed to be? What did he actually say?

[yonglin]

As you might have realized, the two sentences mean the same thing. However, the fact that part of the grammatical structure has been omitted from second sentence (which might be the actual quote) means that it doesn't lend itself that well to teaching the 不管 structure.

My bet is that the teacher re-wrote the sentence in a more grammatically explicit form to assist her teaching.

[Mingjing]

it's pragmatic.

不管 means whatever or whichever.

[YuehanHao]

Unfortunately, I am in no position to know or obtain the true answer, but this wording is my best guess :

不管黑猫白猫，捉到老鼠就是好猫

约翰好

[muyongshi]

不管黑猫白猫，捉到老鼠就是好猫

From what I remember and google seems to confirm this the "actual" (meaning there is a large room for error since it is the internet) is 不管黑猫白猫，会捉老鼠就是好猫. But there is a lot of variations so like I said... it's google, what are we gonna do about it.

[muyongshi]

Ok here is the wikipedia entry for it. Pretty much same as above just says 能 instead of 会 so....

[gato]

Deng first said the phrase in an internal party speech in 1962: “黄猫、黑猫，只要捉住老鼠就是好猫。” In the original version, it was actually "yellow cat, black cat." It's from a popular saying in Sichuan, where Deng is from. Mao later changed it into "white cat, black cat" when he quoted the phrase and criticized Deng for not focusing more on class struggle. He mocked Deng for not caring about whether it's "imperialism or Marxism" as long as it catches the mice.

It's unclear from the stories if Deng has repeated this phrases in later speeches. But Deng has a painting of a white cat and a black cat, which he commissioned, and the version of the phrase on the painting is "“不管白猫黑猫，会捉老鼠就是好猫." So perhaps that should be now official version.

The phrase was made famous internationally when Time Magazine chose Deng as its person of the year for 1985 and wrote about it. The version it uses was "it does not matter whether a cat is black or white so long as it catches mice," which was later re-translated back into Chinese as "“不管黑猫白猫，捉到老鼠就是好猫."

Quite a convoluted history, as you see. See below for the relevant articles.

http://www.time.com/time/subscriber/personoftheyear/archive/stories/1985.html

1985

Deng Xiaoping

BY GEORGE J. CHURCH

Jan. 6, 1986

Deng, shortly after emerging from his third period of disgrace and returning to power in 1978, faced squarely the heretical thought that the system of state control was itself the problem. He set about to replace it with a hybrid not quite like anything seen before. The Chinese system is still so new that it does not have an agreed name. Outside analysts often call it "market socialism," and some Chinese speak of creating a "commodity economy." Dent's formulation is a rather uninspiring "socialism with Chinese characteristics." But then Deng, a thoroughgoing pragmatist, has never been much for labels. His most celebrated saying is a homely metaphor to the effect that it does not matter whether a cat is black or white so long as it catches mice.

http://cpc.people.com.cn/GB/69112/69113/69710/4725509.html

（这句话最早出现在《怎样恢复农业生产》（一九六二年七月七日）中：刘伯承同志经常讲一句四川话：“黄猫、黑猫，只要捉住老鼠就是好猫。”这是说的打仗。我们之所以能够打败蒋介石，就是不讲老规矩，不按老路子打，一切看情况，打赢算数。现在要恢复农业生产，也要看情况，就是在生产关系上不能完全采取一种固定不变的形式，看用哪种形式能够调动群众的积极性就采用哪种形式。）

http://user.smegx.com/ggkf30/fxpl/html/?13.html

邓小平家中也挂有一幅《双猫图》。一只猫毛色雪白、茸毛轻柔，另一只猫毛色乌黑、黑里透亮。画的上方，是几行遒劲苍老的题词：“不管白猫黑猫，会捉老鼠就是好猫。”画者是被誉为“江南猫王”的著名画家陈莲涛。

1984年，邓小平在上海时，得知“江南猫王”仍健在，便托人捎信向陈莲涛致意。陈精心构思，画了一幅《双猫图》，托人敬献给邓小平。

“黄猫黑猫，只要捉住老鼠就是好猫。”本是四川农村的一句俗语。

1976年前后，毛泽东点名批评邓小平。毛泽东说：“他这个人是不抓阶级斗争的，历来不提这个纲。还是‘白猫、黑猫’啊，不管是帝国主义还是马克思主义。”“黑猫白猫论”就此成名。

1985年，邓小平再度当选美国《时代》周刊年度风云人物，“不管黑猫白猫，捉到老鼠就是好猫”被摘登在《时代》周刊上。“猫论”的影响扩大到世界。