DavidJorm, "And the foreigners are by far the worst". Right,, coz the Chinese are very considerate when it comes to smoking. How exactly do you smoke "in an obnoxious manner",, do people come up to you to blow smoke in your face? Most foreigners here only smoke where Chinese people smoke in the first place,, I do not believe we are worse than the Chinese when it comes to that. The nanny state you (we) have back home wants smokers to wear flourescent green jackets when we smoke outside so that innocent bystanders can keep their distance. If you don't like smoking you sure came to the wrong part of the world :-)
hehe,, I completely forgot about the queue issue. 5000 years of history and noone figured out that everything runs more smoothly if you accept this weird and decievingly simple concept. Next time I'll have to get on a bus I'll tiptoe around the old ladies, trip a kid and elbow a couple of guys. If they start to complain I'll have my "This is China,, if you don't like it,," speech ready.
1. The climate is nice and comfy
2. The food is good and cheap
3. Housing is affordable
4. The lifestyle is relaxed
5. The girls are hot and approachable :-)
6. Most of the people I've met are nice and friendly
7. You can smoke without people beating you up
8. Taxis are cheap and all around if you need one (very different from my country), so are busses.
9. Vendors generally don't try to rip you off, Beijing sucks to that extent.
10. Kunming is probably one of the best tier 2 cities to live in in China.
Let's go for a controversial thread for once,, God knows this site could use one. :-) "Kunming" can easily be replaced by "China" if you prefer.
1. People spit everywhere and all the time.
2. The traffic is getting worse and worse.
3. A kid is one thing but I've seen grownups taking a dump in the street too.
4. The Lets-all-get-together-and-puke-our-guts-out gatherings in Kundu every morning from 3 to 5 AM.
5. Seeing people beating up their girlfriend in the street and noone does anything about it.
6. Seeing people fighting in the 5-v-1 style and noone stops untill the guy is near to death.
7. Taxi drivers having no clue where to go unless you put on a hefty Kunminghua dialect.
8. The women with a rent-a-kid on their backs grabbing your arm and screaming insults if you don't give them money.
9. The amount of thieves.
10. The way people look at you if you are walking together with a Chinese girl.
I gotta say I kinda like this city though,, I much prefer it to Beijing or one of the other cities I've seen in China. It's definately not the worst place you can be in the world :-)
I arrived in Kunming about 3 months ago, I am working at a language school and trying to learn Chinese at the same time. I have three days off a week and I have been thinking about spending one of those days doing some kind of volunteer work at an orphanage or something similar. Do you have any experience in these matters or any idea where to start if you want to do something like this?
I assume this test only involved a very limited amount of traffic since the North-South traffic in Kunming today was worse than imaginable. Cool that the IMAX is ready to go. They are awesome.
I've had a phone stolen in 61 myself. Kinda had me reconsider my previous stand on people beating up thieves. I don't know how to spot all the kinds of thieves but I am getting better at it. The more pro kind usually work in pairs. They are probably somewhere between 18 and 25 yo and never wear a bag. They usually try to blend in with darkish casual clothes. Be aware if you see two guys waiting for the bus who clearly know eachother but when they enter one goes to the back and the other stays at the front.
I'd love to see you punch one of those guys if you detect them but the Chinese say that most of them carry knives so it might be better to play it cool. Anyway you never know if the thief has a partner in the bus who is prepared to help him (the main reason he is there is to create confusion and loudly vouch for a detected partner in crime - just enough to have time for the bus to reach the next stop).
Another kind my gf has encountered a couple of times is the single elderly man or woman with one arm covered by a jacket. They'll move close to you and try to fish something out of your bag or pockets with the hidden hand, pretending to have bumped into you by mistake if discovered.
Although the way the chengguan are going about their business can sometimes be questionable they actually have important work to do. Who are we to say that there should be no regulations for streetvendors and snacksellers and no reinforcement of the law? There are hundreds -if not thousands- of streets in Kunming designated for late night street food but one of the problems is that the popular streets get filled up completely and no cars (and hence no emergency vehicles) can pass. That's not even mentioning the "quality" of the food that the amount of competition just keeps lowering.
We all know that a law not enforced here in China is no law at all so lets get a more qualified and well trained cheng guan to get things rolling.
"While in Yao'an, Hu inspected rubble from this month's earthquake. Hu agreed that it was in fact rubble thereby ending a week long standoff between rubble supporters and rubble deniers in the area."
They have recently tightened up the rules for in which hotels foreigners can stay as well. I actually ran into a psb officer at one of the hotels I tried to book at. He said the tightening of procedures were to protect us mentioning Xinjiang and Uighurs and stuff like that.
Went there yesterday and it totally made my week. Nice decor and friendly staff and a real salad bar. Sadly we both wanted mexican food so I can't really say much about their other courses. The food was great but just a tad spicier would have improved the dish. The best thing was that we almost had the place to ourselves and we could have a quiet conversation without shouting, spitting Chinese people in the background. I realised how much I had missed that since coming here.
We went to Chicago Coffee a couple of days ago and it was a nice experience. The place is cozy with soft comfy chairs (I realized how much I have missed one since coming here) and they have a nice little collection of English language books in the corner consisting mainly of classics and travel litterature. I was looking forward to trying their advertized tortilla bar but it wasn't up and running that evening.
Instead we went for 2 12 inch pizzas -roast chicken and pepperoni- but we quickly realized that 1 would have been enough. Those things are heavy. I am mainly into Italian style pizza but Chicago's double layered pizzas are well worth a try. Their coffee seems to be a bit on the expensive side but people say good things about it and they have got a nice selection. I wouldn't mind dropping by again some day,, hopefully when they've got the tortilla thing going. English speaking staff btw.
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Yunnan news roundup
发布者I assume this test only involved a very limited amount of traffic since the North-South traffic in Kunming today was worse than imaginable. Cool that the IMAX is ready to go. They are awesome.
Yunnan news roundup
发布者260 yuan?! Ridiculous.
I've had a phone stolen in 61 myself. Kinda had me reconsider my previous stand on people beating up thieves. I don't know how to spot all the kinds of thieves but I am getting better at it. The more pro kind usually work in pairs. They are probably somewhere between 18 and 25 yo and never wear a bag. They usually try to blend in with darkish casual clothes. Be aware if you see two guys waiting for the bus who clearly know eachother but when they enter one goes to the back and the other stays at the front.
I'd love to see you punch one of those guys if you detect them but the Chinese say that most of them carry knives so it might be better to play it cool. Anyway you never know if the thief has a partner in the bus who is prepared to help him (the main reason he is there is to create confusion and loudly vouch for a detected partner in crime - just enough to have time for the bus to reach the next stop).
Another kind my gf has encountered a couple of times is the single elderly man or woman with one arm covered by a jacket. They'll move close to you and try to fish something out of your bag or pockets with the hidden hand, pretending to have bumped into you by mistake if discovered.
Kunming's chengguan suffering image problems
发布者Although the way the chengguan are going about their business can sometimes be questionable they actually have important work to do. Who are we to say that there should be no regulations for streetvendors and snacksellers and no reinforcement of the law? There are hundreds -if not thousands- of streets in Kunming designated for late night street food but one of the problems is that the popular streets get filled up completely and no cars (and hence no emergency vehicles) can pass. That's not even mentioning the "quality" of the food that the amount of competition just keeps lowering.
We all know that a law not enforced here in China is no law at all so lets get a more qualified and well trained cheng guan to get things rolling.
Hu visits Yunnan stressing importance of ethnic unity
发布者"While in Yao'an, Hu inspected rubble from this month's earthquake. Hu agreed that it was in fact rubble thereby ending a week long standoff between rubble supporters and rubble deniers in the area."
Kunming warily hosting postponed academic conference
发布者They have recently tightened up the rules for in which hotels foreigners can stay as well. I actually ran into a psb officer at one of the hotels I tried to book at. He said the tightening of procedures were to protect us mentioning Xinjiang and Uighurs and stuff like that.