DavidJorm, "And the foreigners are by far the worst". Right,, coz the Chinese are very considerate when it comes to smoking. How exactly do you smoke "in an obnoxious manner",, do people come up to you to blow smoke in your face? Most foreigners here only smoke where Chinese people smoke in the first place,, I do not believe we are worse than the Chinese when it comes to that. The nanny state you (we) have back home wants smokers to wear flourescent green jackets when we smoke outside so that innocent bystanders can keep their distance. If you don't like smoking you sure came to the wrong part of the world :-)
hehe,, I completely forgot about the queue issue. 5000 years of history and noone figured out that everything runs more smoothly if you accept this weird and decievingly simple concept. Next time I'll have to get on a bus I'll tiptoe around the old ladies, trip a kid and elbow a couple of guys. If they start to complain I'll have my "This is China,, if you don't like it,," speech ready.
1. The climate is nice and comfy
2. The food is good and cheap
3. Housing is affordable
4. The lifestyle is relaxed
5. The girls are hot and approachable :-)
6. Most of the people I've met are nice and friendly
7. You can smoke without people beating you up
8. Taxis are cheap and all around if you need one (very different from my country), so are busses.
9. Vendors generally don't try to rip you off, Beijing sucks to that extent.
10. Kunming is probably one of the best tier 2 cities to live in in China.
Let's go for a controversial thread for once,, God knows this site could use one. :-) "Kunming" can easily be replaced by "China" if you prefer.
1. People spit everywhere and all the time.
2. The traffic is getting worse and worse.
3. A kid is one thing but I've seen grownups taking a dump in the street too.
4. The Lets-all-get-together-and-puke-our-guts-out gatherings in Kundu every morning from 3 to 5 AM.
5. Seeing people beating up their girlfriend in the street and noone does anything about it.
6. Seeing people fighting in the 5-v-1 style and noone stops untill the guy is near to death.
7. Taxi drivers having no clue where to go unless you put on a hefty Kunminghua dialect.
8. The women with a rent-a-kid on their backs grabbing your arm and screaming insults if you don't give them money.
9. The amount of thieves.
10. The way people look at you if you are walking together with a Chinese girl.
I gotta say I kinda like this city though,, I much prefer it to Beijing or one of the other cities I've seen in China. It's definately not the worst place you can be in the world :-)
I arrived in Kunming about 3 months ago, I am working at a language school and trying to learn Chinese at the same time. I have three days off a week and I have been thinking about spending one of those days doing some kind of volunteer work at an orphanage or something similar. Do you have any experience in these matters or any idea where to start if you want to do something like this?
3 to 5 years to set up rules, regulations and laws on shale gas extraction?! And here I thought that one of the pros of having a government like China's (cough, cough, haaaark, spit!) was that the decision-making process was speedy when needed.
And yes, we all know TallAm has a point unfortunately. Increased consumption pared with limited fossil fuel reserves make it inevitable that every single extractable deposit will be done with eventually, and as time passes, fewer and fewer environmental concerns will be addressed.
Wonder how they'll cope with the millions of migrant construction workers in a year or two when constructions grinds down to a 10th of what it is now. Seems like President Jin will be juggling several hot potatoes soon. I'll be looking for an apartment next year, so naturally I wouldn't mind a 15-20 percent drop in real estate prices personally, although I doubt it will be that much. The Chinese characteristics of this particular area of economics tell me no one wants to even consider selling with a loss unless the bank is there, knocking at your door, and the Chinese generally have a significantly smaller percentage of the RE value mortgaged than we on average have in the West due to savings and/or family loans before coughing up with the deposit.
Come to think of it, predicting what's going to happen in China it's a bit like putting on a blindfold, aim, and hope the dart ends up somewhere in the general direction of the board.
Went there yesterday and it totally made my week. Nice decor and friendly staff and a real salad bar. Sadly we both wanted mexican food so I can't really say much about their other courses. The food was great but just a tad spicier would have improved the dish. The best thing was that we almost had the place to ourselves and we could have a quiet conversation without shouting, spitting Chinese people in the background. I realised how much I had missed that since coming here.
We went to Chicago Coffee a couple of days ago and it was a nice experience. The place is cozy with soft comfy chairs (I realized how much I have missed one since coming here) and they have a nice little collection of English language books in the corner consisting mainly of classics and travel litterature. I was looking forward to trying their advertized tortilla bar but it wasn't up and running that evening.
Instead we went for 2 12 inch pizzas -roast chicken and pepperoni- but we quickly realized that 1 would have been enough. Those things are heavy. I am mainly into Italian style pizza but Chicago's double layered pizzas are well worth a try. Their coffee seems to be a bit on the expensive side but people say good things about it and they have got a nice selection. I wouldn't mind dropping by again some day,, hopefully when they've got the tortilla thing going. English speaking staff btw.
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Farmers protest land grab south of Kunming
Posted by120.000 yuan? That's insanely low for such an area. Are you sure of the numbers?
Beijing green-lights Nu River dam
Posted bySad.
Fracking comes to Southwest China
Posted by3 to 5 years to set up rules, regulations and laws on shale gas extraction?! And here I thought that one of the pros of having a government like China's (cough, cough, haaaark, spit!) was that the decision-making process was speedy when needed.
And yes, we all know TallAm has a point unfortunately. Increased consumption pared with limited fossil fuel reserves make it inevitable that every single extractable deposit will be done with eventually, and as time passes, fewer and fewer environmental concerns will be addressed.
Lugu Lake airport slated for 2013
Posted byCrossing my fingers they never get it finished.
Kunming new home sales plunge
Posted byWonder how they'll cope with the millions of migrant construction workers in a year or two when constructions grinds down to a 10th of what it is now. Seems like President Jin will be juggling several hot potatoes soon. I'll be looking for an apartment next year, so naturally I wouldn't mind a 15-20 percent drop in real estate prices personally, although I doubt it will be that much. The Chinese characteristics of this particular area of economics tell me no one wants to even consider selling with a loss unless the bank is there, knocking at your door, and the Chinese generally have a significantly smaller percentage of the RE value mortgaged than we on average have in the West due to savings and/or family loans before coughing up with the deposit.
Come to think of it, predicting what's going to happen in China it's a bit like putting on a blindfold, aim, and hope the dart ends up somewhere in the general direction of the board.