If Matt left the forum, why are we debating him?

Just a curiosity, but for foreigners working in Kunming, I would guess salaries on the low end are about 5,000 with free housing, up to 20-30,000 per month for some of the professionals working in town. There are some outliers earning marginally more or less (IE non-profit workers and people who own or run businesses/English schools). Does this seem accurate, or is just a perception bias from people I know?

@atwilden: sounds about right to me for salaries, except I'd guess the low end is closer to 4000. Most full-time foreign students live on less without too much trouble, especially the many Vietnamese, Lao and Thai, who together surely must make up the majority of foreign students - but of course they don't have salaries.

I went to Walmart today for the first time. I think I figured out a way to live for free in KM - just go to Walmart and partake of all the free samples! I suppose Jialefu and metro also have lots of freebies? :)

Anyhow - for someone setting up home in KM, I really think Walmart is great for electrics like fridge and cookers. Good prices and probably with customer service and guarantee.

So about living costs. One thing I never is eat SNACKS. I noticed that a small bag (30gram-ish) of American flavor crisps costs the same as a big bowl of niu rou la mian at my local muslim restaurant. And a small pack of chocolate coated digestives costs as much as dinner for 2 if cooking at home. "Real" food at walmart, ie meat and veg, seemed like european prices. I saw a frozen italian beefsteak for 36kuai, it was the same size as the piece we got yesterday for about 6 kuai.

I just planted strawberries on the balcony, now where can i get basil and oregano plants or seeds? The damn strawberries better work, I thought the growkit was 5.10 but it was 29.90.

by the way xb6asd, 2k is doable. I live with 6 chinese people, all from the Hunan countryside, and most of them lived in kunming rooms for 400 before here, shared bathrooms, cold water, no window, 10 people sharing a wifi etc. Not pleasant, but they did it. Yesterday I bought a watermelon for 3 kuai, and was just thinking to myself, that poor guy has to grow, pick, transport, and sell 33 watermelons just for a lousy hundred bucks. I doubt he sold 100 melons, 300 rmb, during the whole day.

Watermelons should definitely cost more than 3 kuai, given how much water it takes to grow them in a drought ridden region! But it must be profitable or he wouldn't be doing it, right?

Faraday, the Sunday market at Majie has many (herbs + vegies) seeds. I do not buy the seeds in a packet from a store but rather the ones sold by the farmers in burlap bags. There are only a few of these merchants left so you have to walk around and find them. They also have a good selection of seedlings, Pilan, eggplant, peppers, celery and many others.