I'm with NOW! Health which covers worldwide and in China. I've a deductible of 1000 USD on every medical expense and the health insurance costs about $1450 for a year. Never really needed it so I can't tell how well they perform when it comes to it.
International Teaching? I'm sure IT is not a commonly accepted acronym for that - I'm pretty sure we all thought you meant Information Technology (computers).
Anyway, yeah with international teaching you can squeeze in with the legion of other people trying to get a teaching position. If you have the right qualifications you can expect to find a visa-powered job with a wage anywhere between 3000 and 10000 RMB/month, but the well-paying jobs are scarce.
If you don't, you're SOL and you'll probably have to study for your visa or come in on a tourist visa, either of which would land you in illegality and hassle. Good if you're really young, but it gets old quickly.
On such a wage and very likely a difficult and unpredictable schedule, weekend trips to Beijing and Shanghai will also be rather scarce, but you may be lucky.
Personally I think a trip around the province is much more rewarding anyway.
P.S.:
If you were joking and IT is what it is supposed to mean anyway, we may need someone at our organisation (NGO-ish), if not you could start your own business or go to Hangzhou, Beijing, Shanghai or Chongqing. But Kunming is far superior to live in, unless you're the couchy kind of person, then it's probably Shanghai or Hangzhou.
god is that what they're singing. Is that the dumb tamarind candy?
You can get a SIM card at any outlet, China Mobile or China Unicom, if you bring your passport and cunning explanation skills. Maybe just let the people at Lost Garden help you.
Good idea, I'd like to find out more. When I come back, I'll pass by the VN consulate in Kunming and ask, but they weren't exactly helpful the last time I went there for an inquiry.
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First and last experience. Absolutely horrible. I came in late with a big flesh wound. The doctor sewed it up and told me to come back in the morning "perhaps to redo it, and to change the bandage". When I did come back the next morning, they just changed the bandage and sent me off.
When I peeked at my own wound, I noticed it was horribly done. "Like a vet did the stitches," as someone commented. I then had to stay a night in a different hospital in order to do it right, with a 40% chance of getting infections. This cost me a lot more, thanks to Richland fucking up in the beginning.
Whatever X-rays were taken were not printed out and given to me so I couldn't go to another hospital for a second opinion or treatment.
The nurses didn't seem to know where half the things were and the doctors had to repeat orders to get basic things like scissors.
In the next hospital, it was noticed that I had fractured my jaw in two places. On the five X-Rays taken at Richland, they did not notice the fractures.
Pretty sure these people are not actual doctors and are therefore criminal.
Super place. Really cool interior, lots of good beers and drinks, fun toilet inside the telephone booth, and an interesting clientele.
Cons: pretty hard to find, no matching glasses for the imported beers, and home brews need some work.
Teaching and support lamentable.
Four people signed up for the highest-level class and got a teacher who does all the talking, refers to herself as 老师 and makes classes absolutely uninteresting. As of this moment, only 1 person is still going on a regular basis.
While staff is friendly, they are absolutely incapable to help out with visa matters in an adequate way. Lack of information beforehand, lack of support and lack of information during the visa process meant that I am waiting forever for my residence permit to be processed, without any information about why it's taking so long, why they can't get started ... I'd say this school is a good option if all you wanted is a visa, but they can't even handle this properly.
Anyone giving this school a 5-star rating hasn't been to any decently-run schools in Kunming, such as Keats'. The only redeeming quality is facilities and space, those are indeed excellent.
Have been studying at Keats for almost four semesters now and I'm very enthusiastic about the quality of the teachers and the commitment of the school's staff.
One point of criticism is that I think they could put in some effort to group people of the same level together, rather than base it on who was together in last semester's class.
I stayed here in the early days of March 2013. Dave and his wife are swell owners, the staff attentive, the food good, rooms in perfect order, WiFi fast enough... Much like the old hump, the entire place is an excellent place to relax and make friends. And that is what you come to do in Dali, after all. The location is a bit isolated from the old town, but nothing is really far away in Dali. Besides, it makes for a better starting point to walk up Cangshan.
Infrastructure money continues to pour into Kunming
Posted byI believe that being part of WTO means that you cannot tax the hell out of private cars.
Look at Vietnam: a two-wheeled paradise until WTO forces them to lower tax on imported cars, which means everyone is going to start driving their cars which means that paradise is going to hell in a handbasket.
So don't blame China alone - blame all members of WTO, the car-producing ones first.
Kunming's former party boss charged with corruption
Posted byWell here's nothing shocking.
People involved in major (and seemingly unnecessary) construction projects often have dirt on their hands.
- The metro, gobbling up eight years of the city's annual revenue, is IMHO unnecessary (reducing car culture, or an above-ground or elevated bus system would be wiser), slow (elevated systems are faster to build) and expensive (elevated systems are cheaper to build), and even somewhat dangerous (the city is largely built on a mire).
- Changshui, while certainly a better-looking and more modern airport, has been a headache for pretty much anyone. Wujiaba didn't have nearly as many fog issues and transport to the city centre was convenient. Changshui's metro connection hasn't been finished for years.
- My Chinese colleagues say that everyone knows that tree planting is _the_ preferred way to engage in corruption these days. Something about the fluctuating price and the maintenance costs. I'll ask again tomorrow.
Three massive projects that are expensive, only partially necessary, badly planned and where it's easy to use construction delays and unexpected costs as a smokescreen for a wad of cash here and there.
www.worldofnonging.com/2013/11/kunming-in-deep-metro-woes/
Documentary Under the Dome captivates China
Posted byLarge-scale farming is by no means the answer. The burning of trash is usually because there's no adequate trash collection service. The burning of rice stalks is a problem but not because they don't rotate crops (you don't rotate crops with rice afaik). There would be alternatives to rice stalk burning, as below paper suggests:
www.ijesd.org/papers/318-M00040.pdf
Documentary Under the Dome captivates China
Posted byThe YouTube version has (fledgling) Chinglish subtitles.
England's Prince William in China, to visit Yunnan
Posted byI thought I'd read that Xishuangbanna is the only native elephant land where populations are actually growing, due to China's protection measures - not true anymore?