China's not often praised for the quality of its museums, but perhaps they are given more of a rough deal than is deserved. While the government plans massive investment in museums all over China, Evan Osnos of the New Yorker blog Letter from China talks to the authors of China: Museums, a book that reviews China's strange (600 horse skeletons, anyone?) and mundane museums.

If you want some hardcore and thoughtful reading about national identity in China (who doesn't?), Danwei this week features an academic, "Imagined Communities" take on what it is to be Chinese from University of Manchester's William A. Callahan's new book, China: The Pessoptimist Nation.

China's contemporary art world is a complicated thing despite its short history, but to see how art has dealt with the Cultural Revolution, head over to read an article at Inside-Out China, translated and with notes by Xujun Eberlein.

Friday: New happy hour at Aomai's Kitchen
This is the first weekend that you can enjoy the daily happy hour at Aomai's kitchen. Every day from 2pm to 6pm all beers are buy three, get one free, and all desserts come with a free coffee.

Friday: Funk at The Hump Bar
Chris and Aaron will be digging into their funk collections all night at The Hump Bar tonight, starting at 9pm with free entry.

Friday: Double DJ bill at Uprock
DJ Asana will by joined by DJ Minus of Australia tonight at Uprock with eclectic musical styles on display. The music starts at 10pm and entry will cost you 10 yuan.

Saturday: Bob Marley tribute at Laowo Bar
Saturday is Bob Marley's birthday and Laowo Bar is holding a tribute with live covers from 8-10pm and audio and video recordings afterward. Lively up yourselves!

Saturday: Live music at The Hump Bar
The Hump Bar will feature Rock 'n' Roll DJ Jon Picker on Saturday starting at 9pm with free entry.

Saturday: New Year party at Camel Bar
Camel Bar will hold a Chinese New Year party on Saturday starting at 9pm. The event will feature live bands and a jam session. Entry is free.

Airport "mafia" ring broken
Local media are reporting that police arrested five men yesterday who have been terrorizing vendors, tourist agents, and other solicitors since 2008 at the Kunming Airport in a mafia-style shakedown scheme.

Police stated that the gang's boss, surnamed Liu, and its other members were all from either Shandong province or northeast China. Their alleged criminal activities consisted primarily of threatening people offering services at the airport with physical violence if those people did not pay the gang a fee.

Police reportedly launched the investigation that led to Tuesday's arrests in late 2009 after receiving reports of "fierce thugs" roaming the airport. Police say that so far they know of at least 100,000 yuan in coerced payments that the gang collected last year.

Drought may affect electricity supply
In addition to threatening access to drinking water and damaging crops, Yunnan's record drought is now endangering the province's ability to generate sufficient levels of electricity.

According to a Xinhua Net report, Yunnan Power Grid Corporation president Liao Zelong predicts that low hydroelectric dam reservoirs will cause a 20 percent shortfall in the province's power generation capacity through the end of May, when the rainy season is expected to begin.

The problem has been compounded by breakdowns and coal shortages at coal-fired power plants.

It remains unclear whether electricity can be imported from surrounding provinces, or if any other measures can be taken to meet demand.

Pipelines to move oil and gas through Kunming
Reuters is reporting that two pipelines will be built to carry oil and gas from Myanmar into China through the Kunming area.

The first will be completed within the next two years and will carry up to 12 million metric tons of crude oil every year from the Myanmar port city of Kyauk Phyu, helping to streamline shipment of crude oil to China from Africa and the Middle East by going overland and avoiding the narrow Strait of Malacca between Malaysia and Indonesia.

A refinery with a capacity of 200 thousand barrels per day is being built in Kunming to process oil from this pipeline.

The other pipeline, with an unknown completion date, will carry up to 12 billion cubic meters of Myanmar natural gas into China every year. Spurs of both pipelines could eventually extend as far as Nanning and Chongqing.

While these projects would seem to strengthen Yunnan's position as an economic gateway to Southeast Asia, China and Myanmar's rocky relationship and Myanmar's history of political canniness signal that they are not without risks.

Photo: Kunming Information Hub

A pilot project using a type of invasive water hyacinth species to reverse the process of eutrophication that has led to large-scale algae outbreaks in Dianchi Lake will launch today at the lake's southern end.

A Kunming Information Hub story reported that the project will experiment with controlled growing of the prolific aquatic plant to filter nitrogen and phosphorus out of the lake and create a source of biomass that can be used as fertilizer or to produce methane gas for generating electricity.

Dianchi's water quality is currently ranked class V, meaning it is unfit for human consumption or even agricultural or industrial use.

So far 6.7 hectares of water hyacinth have been planted and a processing factory constructed near the southern end of Dianchi in Jinning County. The hyacinth growing area is slated to eventually grow to 67 hectares.

Water hyacinth is native to South America but has choked lakes around the world including, famously, Lake Victoria in Africa.

Water hyacinth was originally considered a threat to Dianchi because it could outcompete other species and choke the lake. But now that agricultural and residential runoff have created an overabundance of nitrogen and phosphorus in the lake, scientists are hoping the plant can absorb large amounts of those substances from the water.

The pilot project aims to develop better methods of mechanized harvesting and converting the plant into fertilizer or methane gas.

It is unclear if this project is part of any sort of larger comprehensive strategy for cleaning up the lake, on which 100 billion yuan (US$ 14.6 billion) is expected to be spent by the year 2020.

Image: Human Flower Project

The Spring Festival travel season is upon us and in light of some recent questions in the GoKunming forums we have consolidated the information we have about Kunming's new long distance bus stations.

In the last three months, 11 bus stations close to the city center have been closed, and long distance buses are now running out of five stations on the city's perimeter—presumably to make it easier for buses to get onto highways and out of the city. The abruptness and insufficient publicizing of the bus station reorganization has created difficulties for many Chinese and foreign travelers.

Addresses and map points for all of the new bus stations can be found in the GoKunming listings section. Here's a quick overview of each station and the areas they serve:


West Bus Station - Chunyu Lu / Yining Lu intersection
西部汽车客运站
Serves west and northwest Yunnan destinations including: Lincang, Dehong Prefecture, Jingdong, Lancang, Shangchong, Nujiang Prefecture, Diqing Prefecture, Baoshan, Lijiang, Dali, and Zhongdian/Shangri-la

This station, likely to be one of the most heavily used by foreigners because it serves the northwestern tourist circuit, is commonly known by locals as Majie bus station (马街客运站), this is probably the best name to give to a taxi driver.

South Bus Station - Xin Kunluo Lu
南部汽车客运站
Serves destinations in southern Yunnan including: Pu'er, Xishuangbanna, Jinghong, Yuxi, Jianshui, Shiping, Yuanyang, Lüchun, Honghe, Luang Prabang, and many others.

East Bus Station - Dongsanhuan Hongqiao Flyover
东部汽车客运站
Serves destinations in east and southeast Yunnan including: Shilin, Hekou, Yiliang, selected destinations in Honghe Prefecture, Wenshan Prefecture, Luliang, Shizong, and Luoping.

North Bus Station - Longtou Lu
北部汽车客运站
Serves destinations in north Yunnan including: Qujing, Zhaotong, Xundian, Songming, Lüquan, and Dongchuan

Northwest Bus Station - Puji Lu
西北部汽车客运站
Serves destinations in northwest Yunnan including: Wuding, Yuanmou, Yongren, Huaping, Panzhihua, Chuxiong, Datao, Taoan, Lüfeng, Shuangbai, Nanhua, Mouding, Yimen, and Anning.


Please note the stations are expecting to handle 7,000 to 15,000 passengers daily during the height of the Spring Festival travel season next week, so expect some chaos if attempting to travel then.

Additionally, passengers buying more than five tickets will be asked to display identification in order to prevent scalping. It's unclear how strongly this will be applied to foreigners, but it is advised to bring your passport if you're purchasing for a group.

Tickets can be purchased at the stations seven days before the date of departure, or can be booked online two days in advance through the official passenger transit website, which has no English interface.

Booking online still requires a trip out to the station to pay for the ticket, which must occur more than 24 hours before scheduled departure. This takes some of the convenience out of online booking, but it does in theory ensure a ticket will be waiting for you at the station.

South bus station image: Shenghuo Xinbao

It's official: this month Kunming will launch direct flight services to Dubai, joining a small handful of other Chinese cities with air links to the Middle East.

China Eastern Airlines announced last week that it will launch flight services between Kunming and Dubai on February 22. The thrice-weekly flights include one direct Kunming-Dubai flight and two with stopovers in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

The direct service, MU755/6, will depart Kunming at 4 pm and arrive seven hours later in Dubai. MU2021/2 will also leave Kunming at 4 in the afternoon, arriving in Dubai around eight hours later after stopping in Dhaka.

The new air connection is expected to boost already booming non-oil trade between China and Dubai. Additionally, Yunnan is home to one of China's largest Muslim populations, after Xinjiang, Ningxia and Gansu – which should lead to more Yunnan Muslims visiting the Middle East as leisure and religious tourists.

The addition of flight services to Dubai is another step in Kunming's evolution into an international air hub. Since the end of 2007, Kunming has added flight services to Kolkata, India and Kathmandu, Nepal.

The biggest step forward in Kunming's emergence as an international aviation hub will be the opening of Kunming's new airport. The 12 billion yuan (US$175 million) airport is scheduled to open in 2011.

The airport will be located about 30 kilometers northeast of downtown, just past the town of Dabanqiao (大板桥镇). Considerable progress has been made on the airport since construction began in 2008, with the steel skeleton of the airport terminal nearly completed and base earth layers ready for the runways.

The new airport and other infrastructure projects outlined in Kunming's ambitious 12-year development plan, which was unveiled in 2008, promise to bring major changes to the city. Alongside construction of the airport is a four-lane expressway that will link the new airport with the eastern end of Dongfeng Dong Lu via interchanges at the second and third ring roads.

Also, the timeline for construction of light rail line number six, which will run from downtown Kunming to the new airport, has been pushed forward, with construction beginning next year. The light rail was originally going to be extended to the airport by 2020 and is now projected to be completed within five years.

Photos of the new airport expressway and airport construction site:



Dubai image: Dubai Travel Guide

Friday and Saturday: Magician party at Cupid Club
Customers at Cupid Club who can perform a good magic trick for those present will receive a dozen beers for free. This event will run from today until Sunday, starting at 10pm.

Friday: Heavy metal at Laowo Bar
Laowo Bar will hold the "Roar Before Spring Festival" concert tonight featuring three local heavy metal bands. The concert starts at 9pm and the 20 yuan entry fee includes a free selected drink.

Friday: Funk at da Hump
MC Flaccid will be playing dirty funk all night tonight at The Hump Bar. Entry to the event is free.

Friday: Yun 871 national tour kickoff at Uprock
The Kunming-based Yun 871 DJ crew will begin its national tour by performing at Uprock tonight with DJ Shonny, DJ Yan, DJ Maxi, DJ Echoo, DJ Kris, and VJ Pixy. The event begins at 8pm with free entry.

Saturday: Exhibition opening at Cat's Cradle Café
Cat's Cradle will kick off its latest free exhibition, "Four Disc DVD Player", on Saturday 7:30pm. The artists on exhibit are Ma Weiwei (photography), Gao Yulin (drawing), Zhou Mengtai (sound art/comics), and Zhang Weilin (Design).

Saturday: Opening party at Hometown Bar & Club
The new Hometown Bar & Club will have its grand opening on Saturday at 8pm. Kiwi Phil will be at the barbie slinging homemade sausages, there will be free imported Egyptian shisha, VBs will 10 yuan a bottle, and Crowne and Pure Blonde will be 12 yuan a bottle. As an extra bonus, the first 24 Aussies to arrive will get a free pint of Crowne.

Saturday: Chinese New Year celebration at TCG Nordica
TCG Nordica will host a Chinese New Tear celebration on Saturday, including folk and children's music. the event starts at 8pm.

Saturday: Kazakhstani flamenco at The Hump Bar
If you've never heard a Kazakhstani flamenco group before, then be sure to check out Saer Band playing a free show starting at 9:30pm at The Hump Bar.

Just over a decade ago, most Kunmingers got around via bicycle, bus or the occasional taxi. Today it has one of the highest car ownership rates in China and a second-hand car market that is starting to pick up steam – which will make cars affordable to a new wave of first-time car owners.

When car ownership in Kunming was starting to boom at the beginning of the last decade, there was little evidence to suggest that the local government cared about the city's streets becoming increasingly choked with cars and exhaust.

In the minds of many Kunming residents, the city's previous attitude toward traffic was epitomized by former deputy mayor Hu Xing (胡星), who was found guilty in 2007 of taking more than 40 million yuan in bribes while serving as deputy director of Yunnan's Transportation Bureau from 1995 to 2006.

In the last two years the Qiu He-led government has been busy with projects including construction of a 'turtleback' flyover at Xiao Ximen, two flyovers on Dianchi Lu and the complete overhaul of the second ring road and roads connecting Kunming with surrounding cities.

Now it appears emissions are in the government's crosshairs.

The Kunming Environmental Protection Bureau announced yesterday that it will introduce mandatory annual emissions testing starting February 1 that will affect as many as 750,000 motor vehicles on the roads of the greater Kunming area.

The testing, which will include taxis and diesel vehicles such as buses and large trucks, will be a part of each vehicle's annual safety test. Testing will carry a charge of 70 yuan for private passenger cars. The process is expected to take about five minutes.

The bureau cited Kunming's geography – lying in a smog-trapping basin – and high levels of carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide and unburned hydrocarbons in the air along major streets as reasons for implementing the testing.

According to local media, levels will be set such that a passenger car without a modern, functioning three-way catalytic converter will be incapable of passing the test.

The report quoted one car owner voicing frustration over having to pay 70 yuan per year on emission testing for the car that he bought new in 2008. "It's not a lot of money," he said, "but overall it feels a bit redundant."

Yunnan aiming to improve driver safety
In other traffic news, the Civilization Office of Yunnan Provincial Public Security Bureau has announced that from this year until 2012 the province will be implementing what it calls a "Civilized Traffic Action Plan" (文明交通行动计划).

The announcement came on the heels of the release of automobile accident statistics for 2009, in which it was reported that there were 5,075 major accidents with 1,888 deaths and 6,549 injuries in Yunnan last year.

With a focus on numbers typical to the Chinese bureaucracy, the project contains goals such as: "boycotting the six dangerous driving behaviors," and "advocating the six civilized traffic behaviors".

Some examples of habits that the project intends to curb are talking on phones while driving, random lane changes, and running red lights.