Chinese Sayings No 3

不管黑猫白猫, 能捉耗子就是好猫 (Bu guan hei mao bai mao, neng zhuo haozi jiu shi hao mao)

which roughly translates as: "It doesn't matter whether it is a black cat or a white cat, as long as it can catch mice it's a good cat". It is apparently a Sichuan saying from that huge, friendly and spicy province in the heart of China (PS even if you don't speak any Chinese you should still be able to work out the Chinese word - and character - for "cat" from this saying :))

The English equivalent to this saying? I'm not sure we have one but the meaning is clear enough = "function is what matters, not form". If you can think of a closely-matching English idiom, tell me.

The phrase is widely remembered as what Deng Xiao Ping is supposed to have said at a Communist Party Secretariat meeting in 1962. He was the person credited with pushing through the economic and market reforms which have revolutionized China (if you'll pardon the pun) over the last 30 years.

You can see why he picked this particular saying.