>Just get into a circle of friends who belong to those (Pacific Asian) >countries, get to know their culture and you'll learn it along the way >

Thanks LW. I am back in Hyd after a long absence,
and hence don't know how to find such people here.
Actually, I know both Mandarin and TaiChi, and was
looking to keep up practice (and to improve).
>I know a little Chinese, and quite a lot of Tagalog
Great. Perhaps we can help each other learn.
I would be interested in a language exchange.
>Try to learn the original Mandarin if you want to learn "Chinese" (the >one they speak in Taiwan and Hongkong), its more "pure" than the >one in mainland China.
The mainlanders (especially Beijing people) consider their
own Mandarin more authentic/original. However, you are right about
the written characters. Taiwan and HK have the Traditional
Chinese Characters, whereas mainlanders use Simplified
Chinese Characters (jian ti zi) as Mao forced simplification
to educate the masses.
>Does the fullhyd discussion board support Big5 (Chinese fonts)? You >can paste whatever you know in here if they do.
I don't know if fullhyd operators and users would appreciate
Chinese characters here.

Perhaps Telugu/Urdu, yes.

I am rusty on the Chinese characters, and use "pin yin" (official
transliteration/romanization scheme used in mainland China) to
post while chatting online.
Xie xie ni LW (thanks LW).
Zai liao
DW