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.
China's first provincial 'tourism police' approved for Yunnan
发布者Can I ask them whether I really have to pay for putting my bike on the bus? How do I call them?
Getting Away: Vietnam's Ha Long Bay
发布者Check out Quan Lan island too - four hours away by boat from Ha Long City (160 000 VND five years ago).
There's no electricity on the island - they run a generator from 6-8 pm and so most tourists stay away. There are a few small hotels and restaurants, though, and you have most of the island for yourself: beaches, mangroves and dunes. But the best of it all is that, for a fraction of the price of a junk cruise, you tour through the exact same rock formations of Ha Long Bay.
There's also a ferry to and from Cam Pha.
Pictures:
www.crazyguyonabike.com/[...]
Wanda opens 15 billion yuan Yunnan resort
发布者Finally, some much-needed tourism money for Yunnan!
Boy raised by Kunming hospital staff turns five
发布者What a perfect China story. Beautiful yet sad, involving money, law and probably stupidity, and with very contradictory characters. And in the middle of it, innocence.
Interview: Kunming Craft Beer Society founder Darryl Snow
发布者I beg to differ that Germany is home to lots of variety. Indeed the purity law was more or less accepted as a way to get Bavaria to join the German Union, favouring their beers (uniquely wheat and pilsner beer) over the much more varied, northern beers. As a result, the variety completely disappeared and the purity law really is a load of hogwash.
The implied purity is not guaranteed because you only use barley, hops, water and yeast - you can still get yeast infections in your beer.
So really it was a political decision which erased Germany's beer variety and gave neighbours like Belgium the competitive edge.
What Germany _does_ have, however, is some of the best Pilsner and wheat beers in the world. But those are hard to come by outside of Germany (think Jever and Rothaus).