Forums > Living in Kunming > Cycling in Kunming Actually, I'm riding a pretty expensive bike that I more than often leave outside for over a year (locked, yes, but not necessarily always to something). My lock is *very* good though (comes with a warranty: if it breaks I get 500 euro from Abus). I don't know whether it's the luck, the lock or the scratches on my frame, but no one ever seems to have made an attempt at stealing it.
I think shiny frames and shitty locks are a bigger reason for bike theft. I will of course change my mind if mine gets stolen.
Forums > Living in Kunming > "Lazy" English teachers? And of course to get drunk on cocktails at expensive places like Salvador's, and eat Western food. Seriously, don't pretend as if all teachers are such poor creatures fighting the machine. Most of them are here on an adventure and if they bothered to do the effort (which most do, don't get me wrong), they can easily find the good deals too.
That said if you make the same salary here as in Europe, you are bloody well off. If they're not happy with the different life standard, if everything should be easy and fair, there's always Europe to work in. My god, such nagging.
Enough discussion now, we're obviously not going to agree.
Forums > Living in Kunming > "Lazy" English teachers? Not if I were a teacher. I have a different job but if I were working for Yunnanese employers, I would be happy with 1500 EUR a month, since after food, rent and excessive drinking I would still be saving over 1000 EUR per month. That's more than any of my friends in Belgium can say.
Forums > Living in Kunming > "Lazy" English teachers? As for the pay, you live in a place where qualified university students work office jobs for fat companies 6 days a week, 10 hours a day for as little as 5000 RMB a month. Kunming is very affordable so 100-120 per hour is actually a very good wage, making you 2600-3120 per week = up to 12480 RMB a month. That's 1560 EUR a month. You know what a beginning foreign-language teacher makes in a country where rent is four times as high as Kuming's? Right: 1500 EUR. Reference: Belgium.
Forums > Living in Kunming > "Lazy" English teachers? The times that media were absolutely non-sensational have died with consumerism.
Besides, I don't agree with you. It's just true what they write. Even before reading this article, I had the impression that the majority of the people teaching English here are one or more of the following:
* not native
* not qualified
* not even suited
* working illegally on a student visa
Some of the native speakers' spelling is simply bad. Yet they teach.
The only ones to be trusted without testing or quizzing are the ones that have pocketed a TEFL diploma. Such people need not fear since they can rebuke any sneers by fishing out their diplomas.
Everyone else needs to be screened thoroughly. But as often in China (and elsewhere), schools only care about money, parents only want to spend as little as possible, so you get a layer of rotten teachers. It'll take time to root them out.
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?