dammit, my visa is being extended so no passport. I will try with my driving licence and a copy of my passport. Hope that works out. I hope they manage to deliver in time, thank you for the info.
Hi
I need to send a couple of letters home (Europe). What is the fastest way, what will it cost me, where do I go and how long will it generally take?
The documents actually have to be there by October 4 but I realise this will be almost impossible.
fisken
If you want to see events that happened on a previous date than today, surf to www.gokunming.com/en/calendar/ with a browser that will run JavaScript from the address bar, such as Google Chrome. When you're there, replace the contents of the address bar with
JavaScript:calendarLoadDate('2011-09-21')
in which you can change 2011-09-21 to any date you wish in the yyyy-mm-dd format.
Alternatively, you can surf (in any browser) to
www.gokunming.com/en/calendar/items/2011-09-21
in which you can again change the date to the one of your desire. With this method, however, you will lose the style sheet, meaning the familiar GoKunming look will be gone.
You never know when it may come in handy.
While I admit that it crossed my mind, China is not the kind of country I want to mess with. They may not put me in jail, but denying visas is a highly effective way of punishing people.
Quitting your job in such a way is only possible due to labour laws that protect the employee and allow him or her to change at any time. And you still couldn't quit from one day to another.
Anyway the problem has been solved. It was indeed possible to get a monthly connection, however only for 4 or 2 Mbit/s. Not for the 6 Mbps connection, which is for "older customers only". China.
Month by month, yes, but the contract is still one year. Or did something get lost in translation?
No results found.
First and last experience. Absolutely horrible. I came in late with a big flesh wound. The doctor sewed it up and told me to come back in the morning "perhaps to redo it, and to change the bandage". When I did come back the next morning, they just changed the bandage and sent me off.
When I peeked at my own wound, I noticed it was horribly done. "Like a vet did the stitches," as someone commented. I then had to stay a night in a different hospital in order to do it right, with a 40% chance of getting infections. This cost me a lot more, thanks to Richland fucking up in the beginning.
Whatever X-rays were taken were not printed out and given to me so I couldn't go to another hospital for a second opinion or treatment.
The nurses didn't seem to know where half the things were and the doctors had to repeat orders to get basic things like scissors.
In the next hospital, it was noticed that I had fractured my jaw in two places. On the five X-Rays taken at Richland, they did not notice the fractures.
Pretty sure these people are not actual doctors and are therefore criminal.
Super place. Really cool interior, lots of good beers and drinks, fun toilet inside the telephone booth, and an interesting clientele.
Cons: pretty hard to find, no matching glasses for the imported beers, and home brews need some work.
Teaching and support lamentable.
Four people signed up for the highest-level class and got a teacher who does all the talking, refers to herself as 老师 and makes classes absolutely uninteresting. As of this moment, only 1 person is still going on a regular basis.
While staff is friendly, they are absolutely incapable to help out with visa matters in an adequate way. Lack of information beforehand, lack of support and lack of information during the visa process meant that I am waiting forever for my residence permit to be processed, without any information about why it's taking so long, why they can't get started ... I'd say this school is a good option if all you wanted is a visa, but they can't even handle this properly.
Anyone giving this school a 5-star rating hasn't been to any decently-run schools in Kunming, such as Keats'. The only redeeming quality is facilities and space, those are indeed excellent.
Have been studying at Keats for almost four semesters now and I'm very enthusiastic about the quality of the teachers and the commitment of the school's staff.
One point of criticism is that I think they could put in some effort to group people of the same level together, rather than base it on who was together in last semester's class.
I stayed here in the early days of March 2013. Dave and his wife are swell owners, the staff attentive, the food good, rooms in perfect order, WiFi fast enough... Much like the old hump, the entire place is an excellent place to relax and make friends. And that is what you come to do in Dali, after all. The location is a bit isolated from the old town, but nothing is really far away in Dali. Besides, it makes for a better starting point to walk up Cangshan.
Booming Southeast Asian trade necessitates bilingual graduates
发布者I'm not as pessimistic as Yuanyangren. I know a fair amount of South-East-Asian students here in Kunming who, besides their own language and pretty good English, also speak Chinese and another South-East-Asian language.
When in Vietnam I heard a fair deal of Chinese, Lao and Cambodian. In eastern Thailand and southern Laos, a fair number of people could speak Vietnamese. People in eastern Burma were often also fluent in Thai as they often (illegally) cross the border to work in Thailand.
There are different reasons for this. First, culturally: except for Chinese, no language or nation is so much bigger than the other that it is not necessary for them to learn their neighbour's language (i.e. you don't have the France or Germany effect). Plus the fact that each country has a lot of immigrants and trade from neighbouring countries.
Linguistically: all of those languages are linguistically closer to each other than each of them is to English (tones, structure over flection, sounds ...), which makes it much easier for the speaker of one SEA language to learn the other. Also, you can pretty much consider Lao and Thai as one language.
Finally, you don't really need to know each language. One will do. Being a linguist myself, I know that knowing a fourth or a fifth language doesn't help. No company ever seeks polyglots. Most would rather employ two persons with different language skills.
That said, I indeed know very few Chinese who master any of those languages. They suffer from the France syndrome where their language is so overwhelmingly big that they do not need to know any others. This could prove a great opportunity for South-East-Asians who do master more than one language, in addition to Chinese.
Getting Away: Luang Prabang
发布者I think its main attraction is the Europeans exhibit. Isolated and outside their own habitat, they seem a bit unhappy yet continue to do their thing: dining, drinking, complaining about prices, complaining about the heat, complaining about the surroundings, unsuccessfully trying to haggle, taking pictures of everything that moves or -in fact- does not move (the latter probably a result of their isolation), walking around, perusing night marked trinkets and looking for unique experiences.
Best zoo ever.
2012: Three game-changers for Kunming
发布者Well if it is because of political achievement, then the urge to achieve political achievement has put into place good works. Ergo: whoever holds the strings of these political achievers has found a way to incentivise officials to think what could make a city better before it's actually needed. The goal justifies the means. Okay, it should also be re-evaluated to eliminate quality erosion.
The Pan Asia Gold Exchange, when launched, could have a major impact on the global gold market, other than just reinforcing Kunming and China as financial forces to be reckoned with. See, if as Mr. Maguire suggests, indeed 1000 tonnes of gold will be sold to Chinese people, this will make the price of gold skyrocket. It also means that people who short gold (i.e. they borrow gold from someone who has some, sell it for 100 dollar an ounce, anticipate a price drop and buy it back for 90 dollar an ounce). Net profit: 10 per ounce. These shorts make the market unstable and undermine the position of gold as a money reserve in bad financial times (like, now).
Other things come into play: the increased opening of the RMB to foreign investment (since foreigners will be able to sell gold to Chinese people in return for yuan!) and the fact that there will be a shift in financial power, away from the LBMA (London Bullion Market Association) and the COMEX in New York. This would bring balance and free market workings to the bullion market.
There may be many other things that could ensue from the launch of PAGE. It's hard to oversee the changes that may be brought about and the bigger financial and political picture. However, if it launches the way analysts think it will, now may be a good time to buy gold.
Cycling from Kunming to Lüchun
发布者ah blobbles, your blog was a guide for me through that part of the 3201 towards Nansha. I was happy though to find the roadworks all but completely finished.
Cycling from Kunming to Lüchun
发布者Nice post!
I quite liked Nansha though dubbed by my guidebook (which I consequently dumped) "a big uninteresting hamlet with lots of concrete and tiles". I had the best of help there from a local grocer without whom I would've run into considerable trouble. I later lost my phone and therefore contact with him, so I with a few consecutive days to spare, I would like to ride back south (and further down) and say hi - and at the same time spend some days in a place that is a little more wennuan than Kunming these days.
Write-up:
www.crazyguyonabike.com/[...]