locales - curioser

[Glenn Becker <glenn@icarus.usanetworks.com>]

All,

I'm trying to learn how locales function in a Linux system. Sorry if these
questions are elementary, but I'm having a hard time finding a basic level
document that explains the role of locale definitions.

I tried re-setting locale to what appears, anyway to be the default value,
"C," by running this command from root:

export LC_ALL="C"

The problem: when I then run the locale command in console-only mode, it
correctly displays the new value "C" throughout; however, when I run
locale from an xterm session in a window manager, I get

LANG=zh_TW.Big5
LC_CTYPE="zh_TW.Big5"
LC_NUMERIC="zh_TW.Big5"
LC_TIME="zh_TW.Big5"
LC_COLLATE="zh_TW.Big5"
LC_MONETARY="zh_TW.Big5"
LC_MESSAGES="zh_TW.Big5"
LC_PAPER="zh_TW.Big5"
LC_NAME="zh_TW.Big5"
LC_ADDRESS="zh_TW.Big5"
LC_TELEPHONE="zh_TW.Big5"
LC_MEASUREMENT="zh_TW.Big5"
LC_IDENTIFICATION="zh_TW.Big5"
LC_ALL=zh_TW.Big5

... which is what I was getting before. My question would be: why is this
the case? And how can I reset to default *everywhere*?

Thanks,

Glenn Becker
Online Producer, Community
SCIFI.COM