不管白猫黑猫，捉住老鼠就是好猫 in English bu4 guan3 bai2 mao1 hei1 mao1 , zhuo1 zhu4 lao3 shu3 jiu4 shi4 hao3 mao1 Meaning

Meanings

• it doesn't matter whether a cat is white or black; as long as it catches mice it's a good cat (variant of a Sichuanese saying used in a speech by Deng Xiaoping 鄧小平|邓小平[Deng4 Xiao3 ping2] in 1962, usually associated with his economic reforms starting in 1978, in which pragmatism was favored over ideological purity)

Pinyin

bu4 guan3 bai2 mao1 hei1 mao1 , zhuo1 zhu4 lao3 shu3 jiu4 shi4 hao3 mao1

Literal

Literal explanation, with pronunciation and meaning of each character.

不bu4(negative prefix) 管guan3variant of 管[guan3] 白bai2surname Bai 猫mao1cat 黑hei1abbr. for Heilongjiang province 黑龍江|黑龙江[Hei1 long2 jiang1] 猫mao1cat ， 捉zhuo1to clutch 住zhu4to live 老lao3prefix used before the surname of a person or a numeral indicating the order of birth of the children in a family or to indicate affection or familiarity 鼠shu3rat 就jiu4at once 是shi4is 好hao3good 猫mao1cat