User profile: Danmairen

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Looking for a priest

There's also Father Ted who's Irish Catholic. His English is not perfect and he's a numismatic. Offer him a pint and he's up for anything.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Is downloading torrents safe?

Easy access to movies, TV shows and music one might suspect is part of China's panem et circenses approach to keeping the population docile. As long as they are in front of their computers and TVs gawking they're not doing other, more threatening things. Apart from that, I've never heard of anyone ending up in trouble for being the end user of media copyright infringements in China. It's probably slowly going to change but for now it shouldn't be a source of worry.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > 'Green card' process may get easier

@Ocean: Yeah, I'm pretty sure the marriage GC doesn't allow you to work, which is pretty stupid since there's no real difference between that and going to renew your family visa every year. I guess you save 3 hours and 600 yuan, but apart from those the benefits are laughable. Now, I can understand why most countries would like to protect themselves from mass immigration from questionable individuals, but I've always wondered why it should be such a damned hassle for people who are married to a national, can support themselves and don't cause any problems.

Ideally it should be something like this: You've got a wife and a kid in China and you hold/have found a decent job. Your local work bureau and the PSB approve and you get a 1 year work visa. On renewal you show them tax receipts and letter of employment or proof of self-employment and the z-visa is renewed automatically as long as you're married and are employed. Personally I'd like to see a real marriage visa implemented in the Chinese system because they just don't have it currently. I'm not going to need it since I'm setting up a WFOE right now but all the red tape, headaches and resentment I've built up over the past 2 years is not something I'd wish on my worst enemy.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Where to buy a good Microwave

I bought a mid-range Midea in metal/black 4 years ago. It's still working perfectly and I've never had any issues with it. Nah, it can't grill (or broil or whatever you yanks call it) but as a standard, no-fuzz microwave I really have nothing to complain about at that price. Brother recommends.

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Comments

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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.

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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.

Reviews

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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.

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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.