User profile: Yuanyangren

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Should you study Chinese?

@Johnxie, I think you failed to mention the real reason why it's sometimes hard to get understood in China. Chinese has very, very few words. Only 20,000 words. No wonder there is so much misunderstanding, because everything sounds the same. Chinese is a contextual language - you can't just say one word and be understood - you need to use an entire sentence. Take the word "shi4" for example - it can mean about 100 or more different things - that's shi with a falling tone (4th) tone. If you just said "shi4" do you mean to "run an errand", or do you mean "to be"? In English, we have something like 1.2 million words, so if we just say one word or concept like "to be", then everyone will know exactly what we're talking about. That's why you have subtitles on almost every program on Chinese TV - without them, people wouldn't know what's going on - it's the characters that show you the meaning of the word.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Should you study Chinese?

Yep - it's not only a very useful skill to be able to speak Chinese in China, it's virtually a MUST. If you can get by with just English, good luck to you; however, in Kunming, virtually NO ONE speaks English. The only English words an average Kunminger knows are hello and bye bye. That's it.

From day one in Kunming I've assumed that no one in China speaks English and I would rather struggle or call my translator than try to speak English in China, because with a few exceptions, it's useless trying. John Xie and some other Chinese posters here may speak good English, but they are the exceptions - very, very few Chinese I have met in Kunming speak any English and that includes the staff working at places like the French Cafe - their English is minimalist at best.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Jobs in Kunming for foreigners

@davidp, many foreigners in Kunming would like to find some decent opportunities, but unfortunately, there is not much work to be found. Little wonder then that Kunming has so few foreigners (with the exception of students) because there's not much happening in Kunming.

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Forums > Study > Anyone in Chenggong?

You can also catch a free ride from the universities that have campuses both in the city and at Chenggong. They do shuttle services multiple times daily (between their Chenggong campuses and their city based ones, which are all quite centrally located around 121 street) - just pretend you are doing business or work there, nobody will ask you or prevent you from boarding their services.

Then again, seeing you will be visiting Sci&Tech, maybe they offer such a bus service anyway. It might be worth staying in the city and commuting using the bus service offered by that university to get to Chenggong, rather than the other way round as Ian_Kunming has suggested.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Do you have US dollars or GB pounds you want to exchange?

@yuantongsi any foreigner can also change Yuan into a foreign currency at a bank, and in general it is more likely that we foreigners would need to change foreign currency compared to locals (since we came from abroad!!) Banks would likely ask locals for a reason why they need to change Yuan before they can exchange it. They would definately need to give a good reason such as going abroad for study etc.

I think if you have your exchange receipts, or show proof that you are going abroad, you can exchange money at the Bank of China with your ID (usually a passport is requested). Still, I'd rather exchange my Yuan abroad, and this is becoming increasingly easy to do as more and more places around the world accept Yuan - so forget about the days of needing to buy dollars first and then using those dollars to obtain local currency. Only exception to this would be if you have some obscure currency on you such as Mongolian Togrols or Burmese Kyat, both of which can generally only be exchanged inside their respective countries or maybe near their land borders with neighboring countries.

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I'm surprised his car was still driveable and didn't end up with a zillion dents (or maybe it did). I wouldn't dare drive like that knowing that damaging my car is almost certain if I were to attempt that and secondly I have more regard for the safety of pedestrians than this bozo did.

Still, this was an entertaining piece of news.

Yep...though I'm more used to getting hassled than ignored. I thought we were all walking atms to these guys! Haha...anyway, it really depends though, because those taxi drivers that constantly pester you in places like Vietnam often rip you off, but if you go for the ones that are not specifically looking for fares they'll actually use the meters. Of course, taxis are better than motorcycle taxis though since they are less likely to rip you off. Also, you can almost always find a taxi or something else when you need one in those countries, even during rush hour. Something that's hard to do in Kunming and even Shanghai...

Also, apart from the occassional three-wheeled scooter or electric scooter driver willing to drive you somewhere, there are few alternative forms of transport in Kunming apart from the standard forms you'd see in the west: buses and taxis (and eventually, a subway). Only on the outskirts of town will you find motorcycle taxis who congregate around tourist spots such as the Nationalities Village, but these guys don't pick up fares inside town, probably because they aren't allowed to, I presume.

What i find that's totally bizarre to me is that in a developing country like China, no taxi driver follows a foreigner like would happen in neighboring Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia or elsewhere. In those countries, you don't look for the taxis, they look for you! In Kunming and China in general, you can walk down the street and no taxi driver will ever stop for you unless you want them to.

Tell the people to look at the signs and see what their reaction is! If they don't react, tell them that they can't read (which is what I would assume, if someone was just so oblivious to a sign right above their head).

Reviews

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Horrible tasteless, thick-crusted "cardboard" like pizzas that are a far cry from what they should be like. Way overpriced too. Wine may be good, but why bother when the nearby Prague Cafe makes much better pizza at a more reasonable price?

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Great Mexican food and ice cream, excellent Raspberry smoothies and an overall good atmosphere. Can't do much about the low ceilings on the second floor, but the early closing time could be adjusted, after all, the nearby French Cafe closes at 1am.