Say what?

Chinese children must learn Mandarin, joining 40 million around the world who are studying to do the same.

I haven’t heard one economist say that China won’t soon be the new #1 economic power in the world. But it seems the US will likely keep its crown for language. Within China itself 175 million people formally study English, and by 2010 that number will grow to two billion people worldwide.

English is de rigueur to succeed in big business. Newsweek reports on a recent survey where 91 percent of multinational employees in Latin America, Europe and Asia believed English was "critical" or "important" to their current positions. Just two years ago McKinsey found that fewer than one out of ten college graduates in China were suitable for employment at multinationals primarily because they didn’t speak English.

Here are the global rankings: Mandarin and English tie for the #1 spoken language in the world, each with 1.1 billion, although some estimates which no doubt include immigrant NYC taxi drivers put the number of English speakers as high as 1.8 billion.

With all the outsourcing in the news it’s funny we don’t hear more about India, where Hindi is spoken by nearly 1 billion people. Rounding out the top ten spoken languages, including those spoken as a second language, are French and Spanish each with 500 million, Arabic with 320 million, Russian with 255 million, and then Portuguese, Bengali, German, and Japanese.

I just hope those Chinese kids are watching their language.

The tipping point

Jessica Osborne enjoyed serving Becky and her family every Friday at the Angola, Indiana Pizza Hut where she’s a waitress. Jessica had wanted to study photography at a local college but couldn’t get financial aid. Becky had problems, too: her husband and eldest daughter were killed in a car accident. Becky liked Jessica’s warm and consistently friendly manner, and wanted to help out with a large tip, and was able to after receiving a large settlement. The total bill amount was not made public but the tip percentage was probably in the neighbor hood of forty thousand percent: Becky’s tip was for $10,000.

Surveys of restaurant customers indicate an average tip of 15 to 20 percent; the national average is 18.6% of the total bill including tax; Philadelphia has the biggest tippers. One in twenty tip 25% or more, one in eight tip 10% or less, and one in fifty tip under 2%. By the way, restaurant service experts suggest that instead of punishing bad service with no tip, it’s better to complain to management.

Tipping goes way back in the USA: George Washington tipped his brother-in-law’s slaves in 1768. The earliest tipping records date to 16th century England, but tipping is likely as old as business itself.

But it’s not universal: in Australia, China, Denmark, Japan, and Iceland, restaurant tipping is the exception, not the rule. The reason: Researchers believe that consumer tipping behavior is motivated by the region’s social norms. Which brings us back to Indiana.

With customers like Becky, I don’t think Pizza Hut will have any trouble lining up a replacement for Jessica.