Wait a minute. How could China's new President impress his countrymen with the mere ability to speak standard Chinese? In fact, China is a country of such great linguistic diversity that, for example, the native Beijing dialect and the native Shanghai dialect are mutually incomprehensible. Chinese television shows and adverts sport subtitles so that viewers of all linguistic persuasions can follow them. Regional differentiation is so great that a refined ear can even distinguish between two Chinese accents from neighboring towns.

It's perhaps unsurprising, then, that China's past presidents have often failed to fully master Putonghua, which literally means "common speak." China's original reformist leader, Deng Xiaoping, spoke with a thick Sichuanese dialect that some found difficult to follow. Outgoing leader Hu's Putonghua is certainly more standard than that, but online consensus holds that it cannot measure up to Xi's.

It's hard to blame Xi's predecessors, given that Putonghua is in some ways an invented language. The term is often used interchangeably with "Mandarin," although the latter literally refers to the dialects of Chinese officials-that is, the mandarins. Putonghua, on the other hand, generally refers to Modern Standard Chinese. Adopted in 1956, Putonhua is the latest government-led incarnation of a longstanding attempt to establish a standard that can be used throughout China. The inability of some in its top leadership to master the language has thus been a persistent irony.

China's youth, however, have grown up in a country far more connected via television, Internet, and the freedom and means to travel. For many younger Chinese, especially the richer and more educated cohort that comprise Web users, standard Putonghua comes easily. Xi's relatively faultless Mandarin thus implicitly signaled an end to China's long-standing gerontocratic rule. One young Weibot seemingly nodded as he wrote, "hmm hmm indeed indeed-[as a] 'Post-90s' [Chinese person born after 1990], [let me] say I don't feel a generational divide while listening to this."

Xi not only debuted speaking what one user called "really not bad" Mandarin -- er, Putonghua -- he managed not to sound like an insufferable bureaucrat in the process. That alone is not a towering achievement, but surely provides some relief for Chinese accustomed to a decade of Hu's soporific speech. It was also apt fodder for an information-starved Chinese commentariat searching for any clues about how Xi might govern. Just yesterday, thousands of netizens speculated about what Xi and his colleagues' astrological signs might portend. This may be why some users perhaps read too deeply into the import of Xi's inflection, with one writing: "I was really excited to hear this. Xi's really charming, he wasn't bureaucratic and stiff; it gives people hope for China's future! The [ruling Communist] Party has hope! Really!"