Next time you pick up the phone and the caller does not speak English, try to discern the language they are speaking - it may be Chinese.
More than 45,000 Chinese citizens per day are signing up for Skype, an Internet-based telephone service. They then make cold calls to the United States to practice their English, according to this week's issue of Time Magazine.
Skype, owned by Ebay, includes a function called "Skype Me," which shows a user's preference for random calls from strangers, said Time.
"It's an area, that, frankly, surprised us ... People are becoming voice pals instead of pen pals," Saul Klein, Skype's global marketing executive, told TIME.
According to Time, unofficial surveys indicate high volumes of cold calls being placed from China to the United States.
