You come just about one and half year late to the party. Before you could transfer any sum by blockchain and most likely earn money on top of ludricous fees, during that 20 minutes or half an hour of transfer time. Then the government banned bitcoin exchange markets and the financial bubble burst, while probably no-one in this forum used this system, and kept on asking back then on the best way to be screwed the least by any banker.

So, all in all, I don't blame people traveling back home with big sums of cash, if it is for avoiding feeding up a sick financial system made up of intermediary usurers.
If it is for hiding money away from being regularly taxed, of course they are to be blamed, though.

Kunming has been below 100 USAQI for a month now. This means being in the yellow range, and it can be handled well by finding a flat not in the main roads and wearing a mask when

commuting. These levels are not bad according to Chinese standards, especially considering the winter low pressure.
www.airvisual.com/china/yunnan/kunming
We've had worse winters than this one and, having tracked thoroughly the levels in the last 4 years, I doubt they will get worse in the next 5 years or so. In fact, traffic isn't getting worse, and building of multistorey blocks is slowing down in the city.

Xiamen can profit from the sea draft, but only if you choose to live close to the coast. And construction works looked bad when I was there 2 years ago.

Dali and the countryside suffers from bad pollution caused by burning fields, at certain times of the years. I reckon 10 days of that heavy haze, throughout, count as over a month of city based pollution, at KM levels. I experience sore throat, running nose and dry eyes when I happen to be there in these bad times, something that doesn't really occur to me in the city. You can find several complaints about this aspect of the countryside also in this forum. So don't base your judgement according to a one-off trip.

Express does too much advertising, pushes referee schemes a la Ponzi and I wouldn't trust them just because they are so popular (and once the government is pissed off they will be the first to be targeted). In addition, they have some anti-privacy trackers
reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/reports/54076/
Never choose a popular service, unless you want to be milked by the corporations!

It's a sad world without European chocolate especially in winter. But in UK and US is sad as well if you buy that sugary local crap.
Buy Ritter when you find it, or make your own Nutella (roast hazelnuts) with a fraction of sugar and you'll live happily longer. I've recently found an easier way to make it, by stirring cocoa powder in bitter organic honey.
As always, the trick to long life is in the melting pot. Learn from the locals by staying away from sugar, while sticking to your cravings for cocoa.

the events are getting less and less here. long term expats rely on wechat public accounts because they've been knowing venues for long, but certainly the new comer misses a lot by simply relying on GoKM.
Can you at least repost events organised by the Elephant book store and Nordica. this is really the least...