[Desire HD Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] directive:
This is a long rant manifested by my anger from the last few days event dealing with BestBuy China and HTC

I've tried to summarize my problem at the bottom if you don't feel like reading through the horrors of buying a smartphone in mainland China.

Story

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I recently decided to say goodbye to my samsung galaxy spica when it was stolen a few days ago. I live and study in China so I head over to BestBuy to get myself a new phone (yes, china has BestBuy). Once I enter the store and announce that I am in a search for a cellphone I am swarmed by five or six cellphone experts. I love android so I tell them I want the HTC desire HD; this temptress of a phone which appeals to my most inner desires. The best buy cellphone guys assures me that the phone is in English and that everything will be to my satisfaction. It is a fine day for spending credit and I am psyched as I draw my golden credit card from my back pocket as a modern warrior. I swipe my card elegantly and fast, as if I am a man who have made purchases of this magnitude many times before. I tell the lady behind the counter, who by the way does not speak a word English:

"Today is the day I am reborn!!"

I grab my newly purchased baby and throw myself into a taxi. I force the phone out of its wrappings and switch it on as soon as I'm done telling the taxi driver to take me home. The HTC logo appears "quietly briliant" it proclaims. After a few seconds of that the phone asks me weather I want English or Chinese? As my English is substantially better than my Chinese I went with English, cool enough! As I get home in range of my wireless I enter my google account details and I'm set! I tell this baby to automatically sync everything I got. I receive my first email after only 3 minutes of syncing and can see my entire inbox, really cool! My contacts and calendar is probably right around the corner but since it's kind of late I go to bed, I'm a very happy first time HTC customer and I dream a happy dream about flowers.

You can probably guess that this is the paragraph where it all turns to ****. Correct. I wake up and find that neither my contacts nor calendar have been synced. Probably a glitch. I enter the sync settings and find that my google account isn't there. Probably something I've missed. I press "Add account" and find that there is no option to add an google account at all, not cool. I search high and low for an answer, read cryptic texts translated by the mighty google translate. People keep saying to just look press "add account" and add my google account and follow the on screen instructions. Since I know I'm following the instructions correctly I just figure I give HTC a call to finally just fix this minor issue. I hit up HTC Hong Kong (HTC China doesn't have a English site so it's hard to navigate). They tell me that I have a Simplified Chinese rom. Ok, well that figures, I think to myself.. So how can I sync my google account? "I'm sorry sir that's not possible, you can however try to sync your gmail account to Microsoft outlook 2003/2007 and manually sync contacts every time you connect to your computer."

(excuse my language but I don't know any other way to express my feelings at that time other than...) "What the

****

!?"

Is it not an android device I am wielding in my hand? Do I need a workaround to sync my google account? The tech support-guy asks for my email "to check if my device has that function (read: sync google accounts)" and he will contact me later. Turns out I can sync my contacts and calendar semi effectively through exchange activeSync. Alright, not exactly what I wanted but, pheeeew!! I can work with this.

I start customizing my DHD and think to myself, would it not be nice with some apps to go with this phone? Yeah, it would! I head over to the android market and install all the apps I could ever dream of. No wait, where is the android market? Oh there it is.. it's just called 'HTC Marketplace', figures, since this is an HTC device I'm holding. I head over to the HTC Marketplace.

HTC Marketplace greets me:

"I will provide you with the best application to your specific device, son!"

"Great, like apps that are customized to fit the DHD?"

"No, apps that are in Chinese."

"Oh, so how do I access my regular apps, like barcodescanner, facebook, youtube, spotify, etc? You know, the good ol' apps I've come to love over the years?"

"Sorry son, I don't know why, but that's just impossible for me to do for you, because my programming tells me I hate you"

Since HTC marketplace hates my guts I hit up HTC tech support again. My conversation goes a little like this:

"Hello, I'm having trouble with the android market"

"Yes, you want access the android market?"

"Yes"

"I'm sorry to inform you that you that you cant access the android market, but you can however access the beautiful world of 'HTC marketplace', a world of possibilities and anime!"

"I wish I bought an iPhone 4..."

Yeah well, I guess it just wasn't meant to be, I should just return the DHD to bestbuy and order one from America or europe. What do you know? In China there is no such thing as a return policy. And the cellphone guys who told me I would be more than happy with my new DHD can't understand why I possibly can be unhappy with it and they suggest stuff like "Go on the internet", "Try calling HTC and ask them to open your phone for american internet access" and my favorite "You can call and send messages? Yes? Then no problem with your phone, go home"

So now I'm stuck with the most expensive phone I've ever purchased which China ruthlessly ripped the heart and soul out of, only to sell it to me and tell me the phone is more than good enough since it can make calls and send messages.

Sure to say, I had the worst day..

I should have ordered from Hong Kong.

/rant

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Problem

In short, I have a Chinese DHD without the ability to access the android market and it is generally crippled. This is apparently because of the Traditional Chinese rom it comes with. I would ultimately like to have a generic/stock DHD rom (I'm not quite sure what you call them but vanilla, out of the box, etc in world wide english) and I have no idea if this is possible or where to start my journey towards fixing this.

I've been reading about rooting for two days now and I still am unsure as to what I should do and where to start. Please, help a fellow out, I'm having a really bad week.

My phone:

Android version: 2.2.1

Build number: 1.75.1400.4

Software number 1.0.0.A9191

(If you need any other info from me please do tell me)