Even though we got a birth certificate with both Chinese and English, my embassy still wants it 'verified' because they don't trust any Chinese official papers unless they've been signed by comrade Xi himself (experience I guess, can't say I blame them).

Finding an official who actually knows how this is done has of course been an absolute nightmare but we've ended up with this: First, translate the certificate at an official translator. Then get a public notary to stamp it. Then we have to find the ministry of foreign affairs to stamp it as well. Since I'm assuming this is going to take about a month or longer in this extremely streamlined and efficient country, I feel like asking other expats here who've been through this: Is this the correct way to go around it?

Oh btw. We've spent days calling the offices of that particular ministry in Kunming and still haven't found anyone who knows anything about this. Is it time to be kicking in doors and calling for superiors?

I'm guessing you need a firmware update, although, you're saying it doesn't play your old games either? Worrying, firmware usually allows new cracks to be played, old ones should work fine without. Anway, as far as I know, you can't Xbox Live from China so might as well go with the flow and get it fully chipped/modded so you can play all the 5 yuan copies. Remember to tell the guys that's it's a real Xbox, 99 percent of the boxes here are fakes -but work perfectly well.

Saw some pictures on CCTV Whatever from Kunming. Looked pretty bad. Could only see the roof of some cars. This month we had 10 days of consecutive rain here in western Yunnan and I can't even remember just a few hours of respite during that. Luckily our river seems really good at soaking everything up.

I no longer live in KM but occasionally return to this site for a bit of updating. Yesterday and today I noticed teaching jobs paying as little as 70-80 yuan an hour and after a more thorough look-see it seems like the average salary is around 100-110. How can that be right? When I arrived 5 years ago I got 110 from my school and 200 for private lessons on the side. Considering the inflation in China that in reality is close to 10 percent and the growth of Kunming, schools really ought to be paying at least 150 by now, and probably closer to 200. Are there really that many foreigners in KM these days, that the competition alone can explain this?

Unfortunately you can't always trust the reviews. My wife says that if you go in and rate someone, you often get store credit, like 10-15 yuan but the store of course isn't going along if you tear them down. My wife always goes to rate and I think always picks the highest one, as I suspect many other Chinese do.