@liumingke1234: Not in every country people say "how are you" and dont mean it. (And also not in every country people go to bars and pubs to get wasted and take someone home).
@blue: Kunming can be the same, because more and more people from the countryside move to the city. Doing business and earning money is just a new thing to them. That's, at least from my point of view, the reason why everyone is so obsessed with business, making money, buying cars and clothes. If I were you, I wouldnt spend so much time with those kind of people. It just makes you angry and you waste your time.

Besides, whenever I meet people for the first time. In most cases (85%) it's like this:
'hello. Where are you from?'
'Germany'
'Oh you had this great political leader, right?!' / 'Wasnt it you that killed or the Jewish' / 'What a shame you lost the war"/ 'You did a gread job in the war against Russia'/ 'I love fiel marshal XY'/ 'Hitler was a big fan of cars' / Or they just do the Hitler salute

The other 15% are: 'Your economy is soo strong'/ 'Your products have the best quality in the world' Or 'I love German cars. If I had enough money, I would buy one'/ 'You are so beautiful... do you have a boyfriend?'

To be honest, I'd rather get the 'how is your business " question

Chinese people keep on telling me how good the air quality in Kunming is... but since October last year I have been looking on aqicn.org/city/kunming/ every couple of days. Since then pm 2.5 was mostly around 160. The WHO says it shouldnt be more than 25 over a long period of time. Apart from pm 2.5, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide is also way too high. So I really dont know why people say the air quality is so good... especially when you compare it to other Chinese cities.

I dont want to rain on anyone's parade, but most of the points mentioned are not valid for me. I guess it really depends on where you come from.
Back in Germany we have an excellent health care system, we dont have tuition fees so uni is for free, we have the lowest prices for food in the whole of Europe so actually I pay more for my fruit and veg in China than in Germany, the quality of apartments and products in relation to prices is also much better home. And of course a skilled worker wearing a suit is kind of funny, but I'm more worried because of safety reasons (those polyester suits can easily catch fire and cannot protect the worker at all in any aspect). The carelessness and indifference for me at least is rather a reason not to like China in general. Not to mention the pollution. So from that point of view, home is way much better than Kunming.

So why am I in China and why do I like it here?
The only reason why I'm in China and why I like it here, especially in Kunming, is the language and the culture. Getting a new perspective on things and learning about their society that's the most important thing for a social scientist like me.

No other reason needed ;-)
Ok, the good weather, the ethnic minorities, everything is rather laid back, easy access to all the nice places to see and you can meet people from all over the world may add to it.

I dont think Yunnan university is worth the hype. I have been studying there for 1 year now.

The time table for all levels are nearly the same:
中级一 and 二 classes are from Monday to Thursday 8.30am till 12pm, Friday 8.30am till 10.10am. Every day you have the comprehensive course, listening&speaking twice per week, reading and writing also twice per week.

高级一 and 二 is the same time table except for Fridays. There's no comprehensive course but Chinese Cultural Classes (中国文化) instead.
You can choose the course by yourself. You get a little card and in the first week of every semester you can try every level. After that week you have to decide in which class you want to stay in and you hand over the little card to the head teacher of that class.
The seize of the class depends on the level but not more than 15 people.
The question about the English native speaker is a bit weird, because most Westeners can speak English whether they are a native speaker or not. And it would mean that French, German, Korean native speakers also shouldnt be in the same class either. Anyway, English is very rarely spoken in class and only when it comes to vocabulary questions. Most of the teachers cant properly speak English anyway ;-)

About my personal experience: I started in 中级二 and was really satisfied with the course and the teachers. The comprehensive course teacher of 中级二 is also the Reading and Writing teacher of 中级一. And the comprehensive course teacher of 中级一 is the listening and speaking teacher of 中级二.
The following semester I moved up to 高级一 and it was a totally different world. It was Chinese style teaching. The teacher speaks, the students listen. If you complain, they take it very personal even though I did it face to face after classes.
So I think whether yunnan university is a good school really depends on the course level and the teacher. Apart from this, the best way to improve your Chinese is to have Chinese friends or a language exchange partner. Another option which I'm going to do next semester is taking private lessons/ One on One tutoring at Shifan Daxue. You need 8 hours per week in order to keep your Visa. One lesson costs 55kuai and you can decide by yourself what you would like to study or talk about which topics. By the way, the study fee for 1 semester at Yunnan university is 5800kuai.
Hope, I could help you.

So far, I lived in 3 different apartments. One on Beimenjie and two on Wenlinjie/Cuihubeilu. Although I never had any temporary water stoppages at all, water pressure was never as high as back home. In the last two apartments I had a water pump installed that raised the water pressure in order to make the gas water heater work. Otherwise the heater wouldn't even turn on. After the gas water heater in my current apartment broke down, I encouraged the landlord to install an electric one. Much better choice, because from 11.30am-12.30pm and 5.30pm-6.30pm the gas pressure wasnt high enough so that the heater couldnt work properly (too many Chinese people in my Xiaoqu are using gas to cook). So now, when taking a shower I have a descent water pressure because of the hot water storage tank.

@mPRin Concerning breaking a rent contract, you have to be persistent when talking to the landlord/ estate agent. My landlord first didnt want to give any money back and said I shouldnt be so picky about the problems in my apartment, but in the end after numerous phone calls we agreed that I get all my money back except for 1 month rent.