To Mr. T,
Thanks for the warm welcome, yes, hopping around, have lived, worked and driven in 3 continents. Really glad to have met you guys, you sound very far from controversial issues
About teachers in mx, I am just listening for any job offer from anywhere in the world, including Mx. My experience with america happened in Canada, so I don't know anything south of the great lakes.
To jchen:
The -e is added to the first xi and to the ni as a sign of respect to the person receiving the greeting. Foreigners in china tend not to use tones when writing pinyin. I lived in china for six years, I can order food, take a taxi, greet people, in mandarin. Nothing difficult though, just a pre-intermediate level. My mandarin is putonghua, maybe yours is different, dunno. I think Chinese is a beautiful language.