Head and shoulders

[Hertsblue]

Careful. Many Chinese don't like that name for the language. The official name is something like putongua, meaning "most widely spoken". Though I was amused in a noodle-shop in Suzhou once to hear two Chinese communicating in terrible English, since they were from opposite ends of the country and couldn't understand each other's Chinese.

I once overheard a German guy chatting up a Greek girl on a bus in Crete in their common language - English.