The town, also known as the shoe capital of Portugal, aims to get a larger slice of the Chinese footwear market after sales of its handmade shoes soared to 170,000 pairs in 2013 from only 10,000 pairs two years earlier. The town earned a whopping $6.7 million from that shipment.

To ensure that Sao Joao de Madeira's future exporters could easily transact business with Chinese companies, the town made it compulsory for residents who are 8 and 9 years old to learn Mandarin.

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Dilma Nantes, city councilor on education, explained, "Chinese is the key which will open the doors to the world's biggest market," quoted by Business Insider.

Although China's factories churn out 10 billion pairs of footwear yearly, with more locals going up the economic ladder, demand is also increasing for luxury items such as imported shoes. Pairs made in Portugal are the second most expensive shoes in the world, after made-in-Italy footwear.

Portugal sees the export market as one way the country could recover from the 2008 global financial crisis as it is still reeling from an unemployment rate of 17 percent, one of the highest in the regional bloc.

The ties between China and Portugal goes a long way back since the Chinese special administrative region Macau was a former colony of Portugal and was administered by Lisbon from the middle of the 1th century until late 1999.

The teachers of the Sao Joao de Madeira Mandarin language students said the town's youngsters are learning the Chinese tongue fast, motivated by their desire to travel one day to the Far East and see its iconic landmarks such as the Great Wall of China.

Zuckerberg's demonstration of his Mandarin language skills is seen by many in the academia as proof that despite the Chinese language, which uses the level, rising, falling and high-rising tones, being difficult, it is not beyond the conquest of westerners.

Tagsmandarin language, footwear, shoe export, sao jaoa de madeira, Mark Zuckerberg