Hello!
I'll arrive at KM in around 2 weeks. This is the first time i'm going to China and I'll stay there for 1 year. Any advice? things I should take with me? thanks!!

Deodorant and your mommy.

hi,
do you already speak chinese ? this is quite usefull here ;)

if you are looking for some professional teaching, you can contact me when you arrive to kunming, i can provide you with efficient and qualified teaching for learning or improving your language skills.

welcome to kunming !

Laoshi
chinese@study-foreign-language.com

Take your time finding an apartment. Try to find a place that's near a a a main road if you plan to travel by bus frequently. There are frequent traffic jams on the smaller streets.

Make friends with as many students as you can. If you plan to learn Chinese a language exchange with students will be much more useful compared to most Chinese classes offered by schools here. Plus they will be a wealth of information for shopping and eating...hehe

Find students from all over the country, "standard beijing" mandarin is far from standard throughout the country... personally I've only found it useful in Beijing... heh. Most younger people can understand standard beijing mandarin, but most people won't normally use it... especially outside of northeast China.

Try not to judge things for the first six months or so... that means staying away from foreigners who sit in bars and complain about how awful things are here, find a happy bar, haha. Spend time(even if it means skipping class) visiting the hometowns of students, and going on short trips to villages with friends.

If you don't like spicey food there is plenty of non-spicey food to be found in small restaurants. They may not look clean, but the big restaurants aren't much cleaner in the kitchens either. I've also found the small places are much more flexible in ordering the food the way you like it.

thanks for the info. the most socking thing is deodorant!! how is that?? ok, i'll carry some with me.

as for the apartment, I have a job there, and they offered me an apartment. Hope everything is ok.
I'll have to get used to the spicy food and 'll try to find a happy bar :)
Thanks!!