Forums > Living in Kunming > Private English Teachers @Billdan, yes I was referring to Yunnan University of Nationalities. I have been to their new Chenggong campus (it's been around for maybe 2-3 years now, but it's certainly very beautiful and a far cry from their decrepit, aging city campus). The university does offer a free shuttle bus between its city and Chenggong campuses, however, the bus does take about an hour so you'd be spending at least 2 hours commuting everyday if you don't live near the new campus.
With a Master's degree in teaching (or equivalent) I'd be looking at the better paying universities or schools in cities like Shanghai, not Kunming, so to offer only 3500 per month and still require a master's degree is asking a bit much. I understand YUN are having trouble hiring teachers as it is, but for some reason they are insisting on the TEFL certificate.
Forums > Travel Yunnan > Renting a car with a provisional license Kunming airport does not offer a service to make provisional driver licenses, however, who knows what might happen once the new airport opens in December? Don't hold your breath though, as this kind of service will take time to spread out to the rest of the country. A better option would be to get a permanent Chinese driver's license in say, Kunming and it seems to be possible to get this on a tourist visa (I applied when I had a tourist visa and nobody noticed the difference, though officially you might need a longer stay visa). If the authorities ask, claim you are in the process of getting a student or other type of visa, even if you are not.
Provisional licenses can apparently also be obtained in Kunming, but not at the airport. Perhaps this would be another suitable option rather than getting a permanent license.
About renting a car in China and driving down to Laos or Thailand, the only way to do this would be to go through an official self-drive tour agency such as ontheroadinchina.com (contact Peter Schindler) although his tours are expensive (think US$5000 or so for a 12 day tour from Kunming to Chiang Mai via northern Laos, although everything is included). Although I have seen a couple of China registered cars in northern Vietnam, border regions of Laos and even northern parts of Thailand (I think I've only ever seen 2 Chinese registered vehicles driving in Thailand in the many years I've either lived or travelled there) they are few and far between and importantly are not rental vehicles, but private ones. I believe Hertz or Avis may offer a self-drive service that allows cross border travel (only available from Shanghai or Beijing) but this would not be possible without the assistance of an agency such as ontheroadinchina.com. You generally can't rent a car and drive it across the border and certainly not without assistance...Asia is not like Europe or North America where you can just drive across an international border in your own car just like that.
Another option would be to use the services of AVR Laos in Vientiane, which can rent vehicles for self-drive purposes that can be taken into China (only xishaungbanna without approval; so don't go north of Jinghong), Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and presumably Malaysia and Singapore would also be allowed too. This is the only standard car rental company in East Asia that I am aware of that offers such a service (cross-border self drive). In fact, for driving in xishuangbanna (Sipsongbanna) a Chinese license doesn't seem to be required if you are driving a Lao registered vehicle...however, you would need to revise your options and would likely have to miss out on Kunming since they don't allow travel up to Kunming (there is a police checkpoint about 100km north of Jinghong that normally prevents Lao registered vehicles from proceeding further north into the Chinese interior).
Forums > Living in Kunming > F Visa- please help! @tigertiger, that last point you made is interesting. I remember applying for a foreign chamber of commerce job in Chengdu recently and they told me they couldn't organize a work visa! I was confused because how can I legally stay and work in China on a visa that isn't a work related one? Secondly, the only way I could stay in China long-term on any kind of visa would be to get a student visa, but then again it isn't legal to work on a student visa in China (unless the rules have changed?) Anyway, I don't understand how a reputable organization isn't able to provide a work visa; that just made me very suspicious of that organization.
Forums > Living in Kunming > F Visa- please help! What do you mean by an "official" invitation letter as opposed to an "informal" one? My dad always gets F visas easily from the Chinese consulate for his business trips to China, however, he always renews his visas at home. He usually gets a 1 year multiple entry visa, requiring exiting China every 60 days, though he rarely stays more than about 2-3 weeks at a time, if that.
I'm pretty sure any sort of letter from a registered company sent to the Chinese consulate where you are applying (or alternatively given by your company to you so you can hand it over to the consulate officials yourself) should be good enough - simply get them to send a one page letter with an explanation of what you will be doing in China and that will suffice. Perhaps you could try checking with the consulate you intend to apply at for more details. I hear Hong Kong is as good a place as any to apply in this region, otherwise try Bangkok (as you have suggested) or Chiang Mai, Phnom Penh or Vientiane (Laos).
BTW Many Chinese consulates in Australia, Europe and North America are able to provide 1 year multiple entry tourist visas that don't require anything other than maybe a flight itinerary and the required fee. Perhaps this is not convenient for you this time round, but worth noting if you are a citizen of one of these countries, should you be planning a trip back home sometime and then need to come to China again.
Forums > Food & Drink > Sober expats meetings? I don't mind a drink myself (although luckily I've never had any problems with alcohol, nor do I anticipate any in the future, since I only drink occasionally) however, I agree with you. I think casual conversation is more meaningful than getting wasted. Not sure about any official meetings of the type of you are looking for, but I'm sure there are plenty of expats who don't care about drinking, but rather good company that would be happy to socialize.
Riding into Kunming's future
发布者There's a flight from Kunming to Beirut? Wow...
Changshui Airport set to debut
发布者Some airlines, particularly international ones like THAI have not updated their systems to reflect the new airport. At the beginning, starting tomorrow, I'm sure there will be some passengers that won't know about the change and will thus go to the wrong airport and miss their flights.
Yunnan goes infrastructure crazy
发布者Yeah the Lijiang line is currently under construction, while the Ruili line is supposed to form part of a proposed Kunming-Myanmar rail link - it will probably also be constructed at some stage (as reported by GoKM last year) but I suspect it will take a little while.
Yunnan goes infrastructure crazy
发布者All of this is quite amazing, but even in China not everything goes to plan. Originally the proposed high speed railway from Kunming to Vientiane, Laos via Jinghong and Boten was supposed to be completed by 2015, but a number of issues will likely push back that project for another 10 or more years, though I do believe that it will eventually be built. Also, since the idea is to link south-western China with the south-east Asian coast, Thai and eventually Malaysian and Singaporean co-operation is vital to building this link in the first place; building a line only as far as Vientiane would likely turn out to be a white elephant project since the objective is to make most income from moving goods between SE Asia and SW China quickly via train rather than passengers and that requires linking SW China to a coastline - something which Laos doesn't have.
Regarding the Hekou line, they've been proposing that one for years now since trains stopped running between Kunming and Hekou in 2002. Finally this article mentions a new high-speed line is under construction, but this will be of little use unless the Vietnamese also build a complementary high-speed line on their side (sure, they already have an existing railway line running from Lao Cai via Hanoi down to Saigon, but it's rather slow). Also, the Vietnamese government recently turned down a proposal for converting their existing line into a high-speed line, citing the high cost and the low passenger volumes that would utilize the line.
Changshui Airport set to debut
发布者Wow, it's finally upon us. The new airport will finally open at the end of this month! Only thing is, I'd avoid non-essential travel in and out of this airport for the first couple of weeks since it will probably be more chaotic than usual and things may not go as planned (for example baggage claim may be unusually slow).
I like the statement "For travelers without cars, taxis are always an option." well of course they are. For starters, most people in Kunming still don't own a car despite all the cars on the roads these days. Secondly, even if you do have a car, who would drive to the airport in order to catch a flight and then park their car for the duration of their overseas or interprovincial stay there? I don't think long-term parking is well known in China so even a week's worth of parking could become very expensive and possibly more expensive than even in some western countries.
I am looking forward to the proposed direct Europe flights. Anyone have any idea about when these flights might begin and who which carriers will offer service (presumably Chinese carriers I would imagine)?