Some might say

Got this email a couple of days ago and decided to respond to it today, it wasn't addressed to me personal but I thought I reply anyway.

"why are you sending junk mail to me from this group, is no one interested in language exchange, it seems most the time people just want to promote their friends resturants,  I can't remember the last time I recived infomation about genuine language learning."

Dear Michael,

Thank you for your email, by sending that email you yourself are now sending what you call ‘junk mail’. I'm sorry to hear that you don't agree with how the organisation is run, but our goal is to help the majority of members within this organization.

You must remember although this group is does function as a language exchange group, we believe in promoting Chinese culture as well. If you are just interested in language exchange, you are limiting your expectations from what this group is offering. The aim of organisation is to bring people together that have similar interests.

Learning language isn’t about just sitting and speaking to each other across a table or in a classroom environment, by interacting on different levels it is then when people can really truly experience what Chinese culture is. Since eating is a large part of Chinese culture with different regions specialising in unique cuisine it is only natural for us to experience this. Many of the people joining this group have been or are going to travel to China etc.; do you think they are just going to eat McDonalds in China? I think not!

I can assure you that we don’t promote ‘our friends restaurants'. The fact that you made this assumption offends me; many of our members are professionals or students and have no affiliation with any of these establishments. We are a non profit organisation and do not promote ‘our friends restaurants’. Believe it or not many business deals in China are conducted over the dinner table in China etc. and this is an important part of Chinese culture, which the majority of this group embrace with open arms. Many interesting conversations are also sparked from the dinner table at these meet ups.

Another aspect of Chinese culture is the martial arts and sports. Since the emergent of China as a dominate force in the world of sports. It is only natural for some of our members to take the sports seriously. The competitive streak is abundant in most Asians’ as it is instilled from birth!  Having spoken to many members they were keen to have an organised sporting activity and such as the demand, we have started to organise some events. We know that this might not be everyone’s ‘cup of tea’ but in order to have a successful organisation publicity is the key, hence the email announcements.

There is a setting in meet up that allows you to turn off messages, so if you are worried about receiving junk mail I suggest you change this setting.

A lot of time and effort has been put in by the organisers to host these events; I would like to take this opportunity to thank them for doing a splendid job.

Kind Regards

Jan