Thread: Where should I start?

So- I'm in Beijing, and I recently bought an HTC Magic. The phone itself seems pretty nice, but it is running a version of Android published by a Chinese development group that can be found at nDuoa.com
The phone has an English mode, but it lacks certain things that I would really like to see on a smart phone- predictive text, autocorrect, things of that nature.
It would seem that the phone was sold rooted, as I can download APKs from the internet, copy them to my SD card from my computer, and then install them from a file manager that came bundled on the phone. I am wondering if I would be getting a more fulfilling experience if I tried modding my phone with something like CM, or some other stable, useful mod.
However, I don't really know where to get started. Has anyone had any success with modding a phone bought from China? If so- was it worth the trouble?