I have taught ESL for well over six years in Canada, Japan, China and Taiwan to both adults and children.

When you teach for a living at an English school that does not allow for children's creativity to develop nor do they allow for any creative input from teachers - YES it is a very boring school and life does become boring as well, - I need something to take my mind off the daily repetitiveness of English.

I have often thought why learn or why teach English? There are plenty more very useful languages out there to learn/teach - Spanish, French, Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Spanish, Hindi to name a few of the world's more populous languages. Certainly they are more colorful in culture and history than boring old English, which is in fact a relatively new language.

English is just another imperialist language - just wait just as soon as the United States falls another country will take over and we'll all be learning another language. Just because we all want to suck up to the power. It has probably already happened to some degree such that most large corporations have moved from Europe and Japan to Mainland China because it is cheaper.

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For me there are really two kinds of blogs personal and commercial. There are ofcourse some personal blogs that advertise stuff for profit too. Personal blogs have never been a form of other peoples entertainment afterall who would want to know about the average life of so and so? No thanks. The odd post or two will often strike up interest for me or others to read more or even bookmark the page. Personal blogs are a great way of taking notes and ofcourse in an environmentally conscience way since it saves paper. After all it has been said that quite a number of blogs do become published hardcopy books. Not that I am planning to publish any of this crap. I have self published and I am aware of the work involved so not again, at least not until someone sponsors me.

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The new year is coming up as well as the lunar new year. I thought it was interesting to note that just like Japanese culture the house is cleaned on December 31, the same is done in China only the house is cleaned before the lunar New Year and a special type of couplet/poem is written and placed above the entrance ways.

Chun lian is a special type of duilian and is used only during the lunar New Year. While duilian is permanent, chunlian is a temporary decoration but with changing times some people may keep them up all year long. These couplets are written on vertical
strips of red paper in the best calligraphic style, and not made on Adobe Photoshop or Macromedia Fireworks like these. But in these changing times I am sure it is no longer uncommon!

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I am not sure why is it that the apparent "Western" culture is so popular. I see the Western culture as the destroyers of humanity. First of all what is "West"? This is something I am still trying to figure out. Is it Canada? USA? Europe? Africa? South America? India? Russia? China? What language do Westerners speak? English? French? Swahili? Turk? Hindi? Chinese? What is geographically west is different from what is culturally and politically west. It seems to me that what is East and West depends on who is in the center. So who is in the center? It seems like it is always "ME". How do we decide who is "ME"? Is it power that decides? From what I see and hear and read it seems to me at least that the "Westerner" is the English speaking American. Both of which do seem to have power. If this is true why do we want to make ourselves like the Americans? If their food alone will not kill you then their work ethic combined will kill you. Their society is too individualized, which seems to lead to a more anti-social behavoir. They work their 9-5 jobs and come home and complain about how they hate their job. They talk about how proud they are to live in a free country and yet they complain how they are tried to their jobs. How can this be freedom? When you work so much to pay off your house. The only social interaction they may have is with their co-workers and families if they get home in time. They may spend more time on the computer talking to someone in another city who does the same thing yet they may never meet each other in real life. Their society is based on "everyone for themselves". You grow up and then leave and are left to survive for yourself.
I don't want to say it but the opposite of this culture seems to be the one that is more rewarding. Perhaps it is the "Eastern" culture but who is to say exactly what is "Eastern"? They eat far healthier. They have jobs that continue from generation to generation. They have extended families that live and care for one another. They have better social networks of friends. They may seem to work more hours but considering their diet and social networking they may just out live everyone else. The more people you have in contact with the more chances that you will be able to get married. Who the hell wants to date a computer? Stop this world-wide effort to make the common language English! Learn a minority language! Keep the friendship and peace.

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