Forums > Living in Kunming > Cycling in Kunming Actually, I'm riding a pretty expensive bike that I more than often leave outside for over a year (locked, yes, but not necessarily always to something). My lock is *very* good though (comes with a warranty: if it breaks I get 500 euro from Abus). I don't know whether it's the luck, the lock or the scratches on my frame, but no one ever seems to have made an attempt at stealing it.
I think shiny frames and shitty locks are a bigger reason for bike theft. I will of course change my mind if mine gets stolen.
Forums > Living in Kunming > "Lazy" English teachers? And of course to get drunk on cocktails at expensive places like Salvador's, and eat Western food. Seriously, don't pretend as if all teachers are such poor creatures fighting the machine. Most of them are here on an adventure and if they bothered to do the effort (which most do, don't get me wrong), they can easily find the good deals too.
That said if you make the same salary here as in Europe, you are bloody well off. If they're not happy with the different life standard, if everything should be easy and fair, there's always Europe to work in. My god, such nagging.
Enough discussion now, we're obviously not going to agree.
Forums > Living in Kunming > "Lazy" English teachers? Not if I were a teacher. I have a different job but if I were working for Yunnanese employers, I would be happy with 1500 EUR a month, since after food, rent and excessive drinking I would still be saving over 1000 EUR per month. That's more than any of my friends in Belgium can say.
Forums > Living in Kunming > "Lazy" English teachers? As for the pay, you live in a place where qualified university students work office jobs for fat companies 6 days a week, 10 hours a day for as little as 5000 RMB a month. Kunming is very affordable so 100-120 per hour is actually a very good wage, making you 2600-3120 per week = up to 12480 RMB a month. That's 1560 EUR a month. You know what a beginning foreign-language teacher makes in a country where rent is four times as high as Kuming's? Right: 1500 EUR. Reference: Belgium.
Forums > Living in Kunming > "Lazy" English teachers? The times that media were absolutely non-sensational have died with consumerism.
Besides, I don't agree with you. It's just true what they write. Even before reading this article, I had the impression that the majority of the people teaching English here are one or more of the following:
* not native
* not qualified
* not even suited
* working illegally on a student visa
Some of the native speakers' spelling is simply bad. Yet they teach.
The only ones to be trusted without testing or quizzing are the ones that have pocketed a TEFL diploma. Such people need not fear since they can rebuke any sneers by fishing out their diplomas.
Everyone else needs to be screened thoroughly. But as often in China (and elsewhere), schools only care about money, parents only want to spend as little as possible, so you get a layer of rotten teachers. It'll take time to root them out.
Kunming residents rally against chemical plant
发布者it's not as much about PX as about the quality standard of the plant. China is notorious for corner-cutting resulting in rattling structures. You don't want a rattling chemical plant in your back yard.
Kunming residents rally against chemical plant
发布者Ian: yes it needs a phase to improve. And protests are inherent parts of governmental development. It's impossible for every person to know all the details of everything. People have work and family to care about. But other decisions are nonetheless impacting their lives. That is why people that have time and capacity to think will think for them. That's how it's always been.
Kunming residents rally against chemical plant
发布者Ian, you have a point in your first post. But in any country's protests, there is always a majority that does not exactly know what they are demonstrating against. Just as people voting Obama don't necessarily know his entire program. What matters is that, if a select group is able to understand the problem (from what little information leaks out), they can convince a larger group to fight for their cause. Much like politicians and parties in the West do. We call it democracy. So by those (our) standards, China possesses some sort of democracy.
Also, you don't see any foreigners complaining the lack of democracy in this country. They are complaining about the dirty tricks the government is playing to keep people from voicing their opinions: threatening to fire and imprison, that's just blackmail.
Finally, it's not entirely right to say that there is no democracy in China. According to a Chinese friend of mine, there is something called a 听证会 (tingzhenghui), a public hearing, where larger projects are submitted to a public vote. Some of the anger in this case is that there was no such hearing about the building of this plant.
From the banners, it looks that Kunmingers mostly care about health and blue skies, an easy life with enough to survive on. As more and more people reach that level where they have enough to survive comfortably, more and more people are going to stand up against things that impact their quality of life.
But, as someone put it: "I care about this city, I have family here. But we are all happily driving some 300,000 cars inside this city- and no-one is protesting that." Very good point.
Yuxi-Mengzi: China's newest railway
发布者Great news- by the way: the Kunming to Yuxi stretch takes 1h50m and costs Y28 (hard seat).
Kunming battling Chinglish
发布者Jeremy; same problem. If they had any clue, they'd have chosen another font.