Thanks all for your insights.

2 followup questions:
1. Do people use air purifiers at home like they do in Beijing ?
2. Do you think buying food from international chain shops means they employ some quality measures to the fruit and vegetable?

No pollution issue in Kunming comes higher on my list than noise. Treat yourself to some noise cancelling headphones. Long after you forget food and air quality was ever an issue you could still be craving guarantees of peace and quiet. And with every new high-rise comes increased light pollution. At one time I could fall asleep counting the stars. Now night is turned into day because every building has to be decorated like a sodding Christmas tree.

This is true. A barking dog is common to be found waking you up in the early morning. The world here gets noisy before 7 am and windows are flimsy. And who ever goes to bed at 11 pm as prescribed by the tradition?!

We have both a room-sized (and noisy) HEPA filter and a humidifier for those REALLY bad days. Legacies from days when children were babies and infants...but still quite useful.

As for international chain shops - quality depends on process and people to enforce and ensure process. So quality depends on the quality of the persons and people entrusted and employed to ensure quality. Your question is more like "do we think they're honest and reliable?"

I think they're no more and no less honest and reliable than the farmers and coops they buy their products and services from. Wet markets have hundreds to thousands of local consumers - if there's ANY outbreak or identified health issue - regardless of reality or hysterics - it will destroy the mom n pop operation...permanently. Not only that - proximity also creates enmity with neighbors.

Go with the crowds is generally a good idea. If a restaurant is vacant during a crowded mealtime rush - it usually means the locals know something tangible or something rumored (like bird flu) which induces them to avoid that particular brand or establishment...leaving it to die a slow lingering but pre-determined death.

Ha, I have to agree about quiet restaurants. Any Chinese restaurant that is not full at 12 noon, and 6pm, should be avoided.

I have an air filter in my room. I only really use it when the air quality is bad. They have come down in price a lot and are about half the price they were a few years ago. We paid about 1000 with spare filters, and it is quiet.

You can get DIY kits from 100 rmb on taobao.

@liumingke: Yeah - note the popularity of McDonald's, KFC and their clones - the question is not whether they are 'fake'.
@ET: 1. Most people do not.

@ET, to clarify. The only reason I use an air purifier, on occasion, is that I have asthma and another breathing issue.

The only reason I use an air purifier is because my wife bought one!
When I see the amount of dirt it pulls out of the air it scares me.

Not using air purifier of any kind in our Kunming apartment (me, wife and baby).

As I mentioned in another thread before, I consider the local pollution risks in rural Yunnan mountains (where we for example now are "vacationing" for a week) more severe than those in Kunming.

Specifically rather unavoidable second hand smoke in family gatherings and preparing food in open fire kitchens with wood that burns rather bad.

On off-topic note, the latest hit in the neighbourhood up here are fly-catching glue papers - they use those to cover dishes and put them everywhere.

Now someone should invent a fly catcher like that with biodegradable paper and non-toxic glue material, so that they can give the used papers (covered in flies) to chickens to dg in. The feast they'll have!

@janjal
ISPCF - international society for the prevention of cruelty to flies - you've been warned!