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Forums > Living in Kunming > Birth certificate in Kunming

I forgot to answer the most critical question. AFTER you get permission from the municipal/provincial hospital to give birth, the maternity hospital itself will issue the birth certificate a few days (or weeks, or months) after delivery. It's mostly up to you WHEN to pick up the certificate. Make sure there are NO errors on the birth certificate - as it's impossible to change anything once the certificate is issued. If you made an incredulous error (such as naming your boy "Sue" - colloquial joke), you can only rectify the situation through a formal name change - which is almost impossible to do also, as the name registration touches so many documents on unconnected computer systems, managed by different departments and organizations - it's almost impossible to fix things thoroughly.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Birth certificate in Kunming

PRE-MATERNITY THINGS
You and your husband will need to prepare many (MANY) things pre-delivery. Your husband should buy a reclining chair, which he can sleep on. They're about CNY 100-200. Get your bottles, diapers, baby wipes, formula, clothes NOW. The hospitals will provide the swaddling blanket and sometime after the baby is born, will give you lessons on how to swaddle your newborn, in addition to bathing, feeding, etc. Hopefully you are familiar with and prepared for your new job requirements as newborn parents.

You will most probably stay in the hospital at least one week. The hospitals in China do this to give the mother at least a week's break after carrying the kid around for 9 months.

During that time, your husband will be required to serve you (it's a cultural thing). You'll need to buy this red egg soup base (buy it from your local wet market). The soup base looks like a red crystalized bread roll. it dissolves in hot water. You'll need to stir in eggs and basically create egg white (with egg yolk) soup. So you'll need a small pot to cook the soup, an insulated bowl, chopsticks and soup spoon, in addition to a sponge and soap to wash and clean the eating things. You'll also be required to have a few chocolate bars on hand - or something really sweet. In case your labor goes into overtime and you run out of gas - the candy bars will help give you quick bursts of energy.

MOST hospitals have a bland cafeteria

or two on the premises. Walk around and find the nearby restaurants - but be forewarned, many use MSG in their food and you REALLY don't want that pre/post delivery. It will affect your breast milk - typically making the baby insatiably thirsty, amongst other annoying things.

Your husband and or family and friends will need to care for you like an invalid, while you're cooped up in the hospital. You'll probably share a room with 3-4 others if you get a semi-private room. If you elect the lower budget room - think 10-20 beds in a wide open floor.

Unless your baby has complications - the hospital will provide a baby crib - so you and your hubby can take turns feeding the new eating, crying, peeing, and pooping machine. This is your opportunity to try to put the kid on a 3-hour feeding schedule. Remember - your kid comes to stay with you, NOT the other way around. Putting newborns on feeding (and burping) schedules is critical to your combined sanities in the early months - good luck with that.

Hopefully - you're aware of all these things...and more - such as the follow-on immunizations that come next.

If you have the funds - getting an ayi (housekeeper) to help around the house the first 3-12 months is EXTREMELY helpful. She can be a live-in or a daily visit ayi - cost is roughly the same - ¥2k+ per month.

Make sure the ayi knows she does NOT have baby care requirements - but most ayis will want to help and fuss over the newborn - they can't help themselves. The reason I say this - newborn ayi care is REALLY EXPENSIVE. If you can afford the ¥10k per month+ expense - go for it.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Birth certificate in Kunming

@luliana
1. You need to visit a maternity hospital in Kunming NOW. Go EARLY in the morning as the wait lines are cruel and unusual punishment. If you wait, you run the risk that the hospitals will NOT admit you and you will now have a serious problem - not to mention maternity stress.

To give you an idea of the scope of maternity and child care in Kunming - the primary children's hospital typically sees 3,000 OUTPATIENT visits per day and typically has over 1,000 INPATIENT beds in use at roughly 110% utilization (over-utilized). So, choose a hospital as soon as possible. If you can't communicate effectively in Chinese - get a translator or assistant NOW or pay the premium to deliver in the expat friendly hospitals. Remember - just because someone has basic communication skills in English, is NO guarantee of professionalism.

Your bloodwork MUST test clean (NO std's, aids, HIV, etc). The hospital will test you as a pre-condition. This may also reveal other complications, such as pre-Clamydia (which causes high blood pressure and other potential maternity complications with the birth mother). If your bloodwork comes back with a communicable disease, you're facing an entirely new challenge, so hopefully, you won't have to deal with that. I saw this in Japan - the Japanese mother had unknowingly contracted AIDS from her philandering husband and had to give birth in a CDC (center for disease control) hospital trained, skilled, and equipped to handle AIDS patients and babies. It was a heart wrenching stigma for the expectant mother.

Assuming your lab tests come back mostly normal, the hospital will set a date to give birth and will most probably induce labor via IV if you're late. Maternity in China is a machine, but the people are generally good natured and courteous about it all.

Unlike other developed countries, Chinese in general seem to genuinely welcome and embrace children.

2. Once you've registered to see a physician - they'll then direct you to the Kunming Municipal Hospital (near the eastern edge of TuoDeng Lu I think). You'll need to go to that hospital/clinic to apply for the "authorization to have a baby" certificate. I can't remember the exact title - but the maternity hospitals are somewhat interconnected for at least this one thing - this will permit you to name your baby (in advance) and authorizes the hospital to issue you a formal birth certificate, shortly AFTER your baby is born.

3. SOME (probably not in China) hospitals encourage you to donate your own blood to yourself prior to delivery - in case you need a blood transfusion (example c-section, complications, etc).

4. Also, you should be aware - children born in China to non-Chinese citizens are NOT Chinese Citizens by birth. Shortly after your child is born, (30-90 days), you will need to register the baby with the local public security office AND begin the process of applying for your baby's passport.

5. Once you have your baby's passport, you MUST visit the Visa office to get your baby an ENTRY visa. Inevitably, some moron in the visa office may tell you, your baby must leave and return to China in order to get the ENTRY visa (but you can't EXIT without a valid ENTRY visa). Tell them you'd prefer to pay the extra fee, so you do NOT have to travel with a newborn. They will arrange to stamp your new baby's passport with an entry visa.

If the front desk staff give you any bureaucratic nonsense, ask to speak to a supervisor.

ALWAYS be polite, but firm, when things need to be escalated to a supervisory level, if the front desk staff become belligerent or unreasonable. Sometimes, people just have bad days and the front desk staff sometimes like to share their bad days.

Hopefully, I've been more helpful than terrifying (occupational hazard) and wish you only the best in welcoming your newborn child into this world.

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Forums > Travel Yunnan > Police certificate of no criminal records

Kitty - as lemon lover noted - the place EXIT-ENTRY Administration office of the PSB is on Tuodeng Road.Their phone number is 0871－63143436.

WEBSITE ADDRESS
www.kmcrj.com

WARNING
I have NOT done this process myself - HFCAMPO DID do this process about a year ago (I think) and it was not a simple matter for him.

Please note - this is the Visa Exit/Entry office for both Chinese and foreigners, so it's possible I'm directing you to the wrong PSB office - that's why it's better you ask a Chinese speaking friend to come with you, if possible. There's a user on here named taijijulia who MAY help you and others who may require nominal fees.

Also, please remember to bring the smaller ID pictures (at least TWO) and just in case, also bring TWO 2cmx2cm (?) passport photos, just in case. The rules on photos for foreigners at the visa office have changed, you'll need to get photos taken at officially designated photo shops and this may apply to the criminal background check. There's one next (?) to the PSB Visa Exit/Entry office and another across from the Green Lake entrance to Yunnan University. The photos office can supply both passport (larger) and visa (smaller) photos, which are automatically registered with the PSB online.

Foreigners go STRAIGHT upstairs to the third floor (3F). The officers on the third floor usually speak enough english to give you the right forms. This is actually the Visa office, but I believe they handle ALL administrative security matters related to foreigners living in Kunming. IF this is the WRONG office, they can direct you to the correct office - make sure they give you the address in Chinese and if you can't read - in pinyin.

You'll need to provide them the address(es) you used, while living in Kunming and they MAY ask you to visit the local PSB that you were required to register at when you lived here, so be prepared for that...and hopefully that won't happen. If you have the old slips of paper issued by the local PSB (residence registration), that will help a LOT.

Worst case - be prepared for a day or more of running around town. Hopefully the local PSB's are connected by computer, so you won't have to personally go visit them anymore.

Best wishes - HIGHLY recommend you search the old FORUMS for HFCAMPO's post on this matter as he gave an excellent summary of the steps required (including fingerprinting). I vaguely recall he went to a different office or different floor in the PSB building - probably at the old Beijing Lu address - so it is REALLY best you have a chinese friend call the office (they rarely answer their phones) to find the correct address to do this for this FOR FOREIGNERS, as opposed to my guessing - which will only point you to the first step (which may be the wrong first step).

I'm sorry I can't be more helpful - but I'm not in Kunming at the moment.

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Forums > Travel Yunnan > Police certificate of no criminal records

Kitty
You need the PSB report for the USA, so...

1. PSB. Go to PSB. Apply for and get the Criminal Background Check.
2. Notary. Take the PSB Criminal Background check to the Notary. Have it translated into English, then notarized.

For USA, you MAY need to have the document notarized at either the US consulate, embassy, or in the USA, but hopefully, not.

Good luck - this should be much simpler to do in China than the USA.

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@asatirical
It's no prob...I was actually amused. The leadoff reminded me of Chevy Chase's famous news skits on SNL (Jane, you ignorant....). Apologies for goading you into a massive response. Out of respect, I read it all and concur - but...kids will be kids...sometimes, they just gotta learn things the hard way, in the real world.

As for the professional project management comment - I was commenting on the PM process, not the extraordinarily polarizing debatable aspects of mandatory PE for emerging adults. The university exhibited the core PM processes - which I find unusual with most government organizations and officials (to include USA - not familiar with the shenanigans of other governments, so no opinions there).

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Dear satyrical bloke
Perhaps it's the brevity of internet blogs - however thank you for broadly insinuating publicly I'm a failure as a parent, based on a singular vague and unimplemented opinion. I'm guessing my personal opinion must have been highly inflammatory to elicit such a highly inflammatory comment.

As a parental failure - I'll use any and all tools available to guide my children towards being self-sustaining, productive, ethical, moral, and responsible citizens of society. If the kids refuse to study at home, do their home chores, are addicted to their digital devices, disrespectful - I'll put them in boarding school jails, where they're forced to study under someone else's oppressive eye, digital devices are forbidden or destroyed, physical daily exercise is mandatory, and their every living and waking moment is controlled.

If university trained/prepared professional life isn't desirable to them, I'll try to guide them into sustainable vocational careers, to include military service.

As a parental failure, I'm also of the opinion that my primary duty is not to be my children's best friend, although perhaps that will come with time and maturity (from both parties - parent AND child) - but to prepare them for a responsible self sustainable life without me, fiscal, environmental, and social responsibility.

We never know how long we can breathe and wander the earth - so yes, I'm absolutely a chronic failure as a parent - better than some - worse than others. So I strive to "parent" with "a sense of urgency".

Incredibly astute of you to pick ascertain my chronic and pervasive failure as a parent, based on a singular, as yet unimplemented opinion of mandatory physical education with a stated and measurable performance metric.

On that note - the university was incredibly amazing in stating and implementing this specific requirement. It showed some potentially incredible project management skills as opposed to the typically vague management directives.

Reviews

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Fuxian Lake is a major vigorously and rigorously protected potable (drinkable) water source. It's host to a plethora of fresh water food, BBQs and the Hilton Hotel overlooks the lake. Behind the Hilton is a rather large collection of villas (HK style), many with basements, garage (not necessarily connected to your home though), and lap pools, if the lake is too far to walk (it's about 1-2km away).

The lake surroundings are a future development site for Yuxi City, so should be interesting to see how the city develops, while complying with the national protection of water resources.

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Took the family here to stroll around and there's a LOT of walking. Many of the stores appear closed, but the bar street nestled inside seems quite well populated.

We chose the Japanese restaurant near the entrance (there are many entrances). The food and service was quite acceptable - from the fruit salad, tuna salad, curry pork cutlet, and the ubiquitous California Sush Rolls (you can buy the small size or the large size).

It rained a little while we were there, which helped drench the heat and humidity. When the sun came out - it was HOT.

If you're lucky, you'll occasionally see people (usually women) wearing minority clothing being photographed by professional photographers. There's also a small photographer's store where you can rent various ethnic clothing and have professional pictures taken (maybe the two are related...now that I think about it).

There's also the ubiquitous game centers (shooting galleries etc) for the kids and unaccompanied teenagers.

It seems the most popular venues were the prolific food courts - but that's probably related to it being lunchtime when we visited. The place is clean and plenty of antiqued door fronts (the wood panels) for those photo shoots.

Capping off the visit, one must of course take pictures on the bridges crossing the lily ponds and the landmark temple spire. We didn't make it to the surrounding temples. Maybe next time.

Transportation is everywhere - but make sure you have your mobile phone ride share app working, just in case you hit rush hour.

Again - for now - it seems many vendors were closed - but I'm positive that'll change again as the economy begins to rebound.

Excellent way to spend a half day as opposed to the kids faces glued to their mobile devices...fresh air, good food, plenty of people watching, and walking...walking...walking...

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Took the family here a few days ago. Wonderful place to go walking with lots of snack & drink kiosks (along with chairs and tables) to rest frequently. This zoo is similar to most other large open air zoos with reasonably spacious enclosures. This place is HUGE so be prepared for a LOT of walking. Consider wearing sensible hiking or walking shoes. Your feet will be grateful.

Entrance fees when we went still cny100 for adults and kids cny70. Feeding the animals at the managed venues - cny30 per site...per child. Monkeys can be fed by tossing carrots and sliced apples into their enclosure - which is good. Monkeys famous for flash mobbing. Can be terrifying for kids (and adults). Even in the enclosures, you can clearly see they're territorial and aggressive. Bullying is displayed frequently enough for teaching moments for the kids (cuz there are monkeys in all schools everywhere in the world).

MOST people bring their own food and drink, as the kiosks are quite expensive. Example a cny5 drink outside is cny10 in the zoo, so expect most everything to be twice as expensive. I had a bbq chick drumstick (leg?) for cny25...ouch.

Bring carrots. LOTS of carrots. The zoo has several managed (paid) and unmanaged petting areas for most semi-domesticated animals, such as the Alpacas (seriously cute), deer, giraffes (ok...you can feed the giraffes on an elevated platform, but probably difficult to "pat" the animals. It's kind of spectacular to actually see giraffes face to face - these animals are simply vertigo inducing huge and tall.

The seal show was nice - typical of seal shows everywhere. Seals are kind of like the dogs of the sea. Friendly and ravenous appetites so easily trainable.

Lots of cheap touristy souvenirs to buy the for the kiddies (and relatives kids).

HIGHLY recommend taking the bus tour - they basically zoom around picking up and dropping off customers (they check your e-ticket at every pickup site) at entrances and exits to walking enclosures. They'll drop you off at roughly 15 minute walking sites. NO need to rush and you can grab ANY bus upon emerging from the walking enclosure sites.

Of course, the ultimate attraction always the lion and tiger exhibits at the top of the mountain.

Bring a fan. It gets hot. We were fortunate as the sky was mostly overcast so the temperature was generally cool, but heated up almost instantly whenever the sun peeked out of the clouds.

Bring LOTS of water. Most veteran tourists have their own liter bottles of water. Bring your own umbrella. When the sun comes out - it's HOT. Bring a wide brimmed hat if you're into comfort over vanity. SUNTAN LOTION never goes astray.

Aside from that - typical Chinese group site with everyone rushing the buses and ticket counters. Not so much rushing for the food venues, so seems the elevated prices keep that comfortably in check.

All in all - GREAT place to take the kiddies (or a date if you both know you're into each other - cuz you'll be spending an entire day together). The Outdoor Zoo seems exceptionally well designed with plenty of both managed and unmanaged (eg walking deer along the roadside and the stroll through the peacock "garden").

Easy cab or shared ride out and back. Taxis aplenty when you're ready to leave (just walk past the parking lot gate - they'll be waiting for you). You should consider dining out or delivery at the end of the day.

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Took the kiddies here again.

1. It's FREE.
2. NO knives, lighters, sharp objects, etc. There's a place in front to check bags, luggage (if you're traveling), etc - but the exit is in the rear of the monolithic building, so it's a bit of a hike to walk back around to the checked storage area (it's also FREE).

THIRD FLOOR
We went straight to the third floor - History and artifacts of Yunnan (mostly). Rich history - lots of original sculptures etc removed from grottoes and displayed in the museum. Lots of English language titles and occasionally some explanatory text in English.

SECOND FLOOR
This is the evolution floor with lots of petrified artifacts - sea life mostly, lots of recreations of animals and environments from pre-man times.

There are coffee shops and dining areas on the first floor and drink vending machines on the second and third floors. The place is HUGE so a great place to take the kiddies and walk around until they're tired. They'll probably enjoy the dinosaur exhibit on the second floor the most. Wait a few minutes and the dinosaurs will roar and move their heads and maybe pretend to chew (open and close their maws).

PLENTY of parking and unfortunately NOT close to any subway station, so you'll have to grab a cab or rideshare but seems taxis and transportation are aplenty in the city and surrounding environs.

And...it's FREE for now. Museum closes at 5pm so make sure you leave by 430-445 so you can hike back to the storage area if you checked anything in as they also close at 5pm.

Enjoy!

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This is a great place to walk around and generally kill time while shopping for nothing in particular. Nearby is the Paulaner Brewhouse for super fantastic food, coffee and drinks, outdoor patio dining or just hanging and people watching.