@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.

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.

@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.

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.

@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.