This reminds me of the billion heartbeats thing (across species, that’s approximately how long all lives are — I’d thought it was apocryphal until I saw Sean Carroll mention it as fact), but I’d never heard this one:

In other words, your ears aren’t deceiving you: Spaniards really do sprint and Chinese really do stroll, but they will tell you the same story in the same span of time.

(via kottke)