Ocean

Technically you can get married in China without registering your marriage at your embassy / consulate but it means that your own country will NOT consider you married. So better do the registry part, which is the most complex part.

Chinese side of the marriage procedure is fairly straight forward:

The chinese spouse need her ID and Hukou while the foreigner need passport and a legalized translation of the "being single" certificat. The administrative marriage is to be done in the capital of the province where the Chinese spouse has her/his hukou, at the main provincial office for marriage. It is NOT the chinese that requires the health certificat, it has been dropped at national level a few years back, but some embassies still have this requirement. The administrative marriage can be done in a few hours when you have all the paper ready.

Foreigner side.
It is the foreigner side that can slow down the process. You NEED to start the foreigner side before the chinese. What you need depends of your own country requirement to register the marriage officially.

There is only one thing to do, find your nearest consulate and ask them what you need to do. As an example my country (France) interview the bride-to-be as a prerequisite of the "certificate of marriage capacity" which I find is a shocking intrusion in and limitation of my freedom (to marry who I want).

Some embassies / consulate will make the process easy while other will drag it on for ages. If your embassy is easy going and your chinese spouse's hukou is not at the other end of the country the process can be done in 2/3 months. If your embassy is being difficult about it, it can take 6, 9 or even 12 months to do the process.

So really the question is, where are you from Ocean and where is your Chinese Fiance's hukou.

On a practical note, after the marriage you can apply for a "visiting relative" visa in Kunming. You should be able to have a visa allowing you to stay a year in china and be multiple entries (ask for it). Fee depends of your country of origin but expect something similar to your student visa fees.

You can play Weiqi/go at my place, the Game Café.

136 Wenlin Jie / 文林街136号 its opposite prague cafe.

I am usually good to play one myself, for a foreigner i am a decent player but any good chinese player would beat me.

You can call me to set up a game with me.
Daniel 15987106773

We sell chinese chess/go board at the game cafe (136 wenlin jie, opposite Prague). We also sell chinese chess pieces and smallish size international chess (ancient chinese warriors pieces). Come have a look, we're pretty reasonable on the price.

Daniel
15987106773

I have to disagree with Laotou statement that China is very multicultural. I am european and lived in London for several years, where something close to 40% of the population is not british born. Kunming is NOT that kind of environment. Han Chinese have the impression of multiculturalism in Yunnan because of the minorities (40% of the population) but for an outsider who don't speak Chinese that multiculturalism might be somehow diluted, especially in Kunming. Outside of Kunming the particularism of ethnic groups might be more striking and have less of a simple dress-up aspect.

Foreigners living in Kunming are mostly from Asia, Korean and Thai are a big chunk of them. The community of Western foreigners is a patchwork based on language, so it is actually a small group of communities that don't work as well together than in other more multicultural places like Hong Kong. Those western communities are also far less important to the locals in term of trade than they generally think. Symbolically Westerners are important to chinese, but more as a reverse orientalism than a need for real interactions.

English is useless in daily life in kunming, a lot of shop keepers are very poor people who never had the time for education and are just scraping a living. However with a minimal effort and language exchange you will pick up a 100-200 words that will allow you to go through daily life without too much frustrating experiences, as I do.

Only university students can speak a bit of english and none of them works in shops. But a lot of them will be happy to have social interaction with you, but you have to at least pretend that you are trying to learn chinese. Most Chinese i meet don't understand and take it as an insult to their culture when someone do not make a real effort to learn the language. They are also fairly unaware of the difficulty of learning their language, they notice the few westerners that are successful at it and forget the hundreds that are never going beyond intermediate level. Over time this can be a serious source of frustration. But 2-3 years is not such a long time, and as an outside observer Kunming can be pretty interesting and also offer a base of exploration that is fantastic.

I have made the trip more than 10 times, although not in the last 6 months.

The best way to do the crossing in my experience in both direction is the new direct bus between Shz airport and Kowloon Station that use the new Western corridor. It cost 100rmb, takes usually 1h30 (including border passage), requires you to get off the bus only once, to pass the new (and empty) border crossing of the western corridor. It is super smooth and bring you to kowloon, where you can get to the airport or the rest of HK in no time. All other ways of crossing requires you to move your luggage more.

The bus company have a little stand in the arrival hall in Shenzhen and a check-in hall under the "elemental" shopping mall of kowloon station. Their logo is kind of pink with some kind of dragons but i can't remember their names.