They should be educated

Not being able to communicate with people is very frustrating, and I like to travel.

"Americans are fat" "Americans think they are better than everybody else" "Americans are obnoxious" "Americans are loud" As an American, I can tell you not even close to all of us are like this. However, there are a lot of loud fatties here :) Some common stereotypes that Americans have of Russians would probably be: "Russians drink and smoke a lot" "Russians are pale" "Russians (men) grow big beards"

Like Bingibongi, too much. Probably a few hours daily.

I guess it depends on how you define "hippie". I usually think of hippies as very open-minded and accepting people. If everyone had these qualities, the world would be a better place.

I know how it feels...I also want to travel around the world. By doing traveling and experiencing different ways of life, maybe I'll get a better understanding of this world.

Learning Chinese opens up a whole new world to someone outside of the culture.

I'm not sure where I stand on this issue. Like Mytch, I would agree that a language's main purpose is to allow people to communicate. Would it be bad if everyone in the world was able communicate and share ideas with one another? It would be awesome! And I don't think this would result in any loss of knowledge...we live in the information age! Almost everything we know is recorded. Besides, people still learn Latin, despite the fact it isn't commonly spoken anywhere. Languages live, die out, change and evolve, like everything else.