They should just buy Western vaccines.
Omicron makes COVID 0 an impossible target, it is just too transmissible. China, after an initial failure in Wuhan did a remarkable job of containing COVID. But, Omicron isn’t containable.
The Western vaccines are better at preventing death and hospitalization with the variants than Sinovac.
The current COVID policy just isn’t workable and has no end.
You can also just book a fully refundable, pay on arrival hotel, and cancel the hotel after you get your visa.
It was not a small hospital, it is Yunnan #2, that giant monstrosity of a hospital on Dianmian Dadao near the railroad tracks.
I went there, because I just needed a sick leave note (I only get paid, if I have a doctor’s note).
My experience at Yunnan #1, wasn’t amazing either.
4 hour wait, number 46th in line, to see one of two doctors in that department.
When doctor’s are seeing that many patients in a day, they are not providing quality care.
I went to the same Yunnan Medical University No. 2 (I forgot to include No. 2), with a minor stomach issue.
I needed a note for work.
They tried to steal my appendix.
That is not an exaggeration.
I walked into the doctors office, told the doctor I had pretty nasty pain in the right side of my stomach, and the doctor immediately called the OR, and within a minute there was a gurney waiting to take me to the OR.
No exams were done, nothing.
The doctor just heard pain in lower right side of stomach, straight to surgery.
I said, I don’t think it is my appendix.
The doctor replied he thought it was.
I said, the pain didn’t seem serious enough, he said they should take it out to just be safe.
I asked for more tests before surgery.
They performed an ultrasound, that showed my appendix was fine.
If I didn’t stand up for myself, I would have had an unnecessary surgery that would have been very expensive and knocked me out of work for at least a week, if not longer.
Altogether, that could have cost me 30-40K, hospital bills and unpaid time off.
I use to tutor a doctor who worked in a local public hospital.
He said the hospitals are underfunded, and are forced to fill the gaps by selling unnecessary treatments.
I imagine that is part of the reason they were so quick to want to cut me open.
And my wife went to Yunnan Medical University three times for lingering complications with stubborn pneumonia.
On three different occasions she had a different doctor diagnose a large black spot on the chest X-Ray as either fluid or scar tissue in her lungs.
She went back to the U.S., saw her GP, who said that the spot was a gastric bubble in her stomach, completely benign and normal.
The medical care at the public hospitals is substandard.
No results found.
It is a decent western restaurant, but I just feel it could be better. It is hard to put my finger on it, but food while good, isn't great. Nothing there really wows me. That said, I do regularly dine there.
I think where it misses the 5th star is, that the price doesn't quite meet the pretty good (yet not great quality food), and the generally horrendous service.
The staff doesn't really speak "waiter English", and often little things like bing shui are forgotten about completely. If anything goes wrong, it is really a challenge to communicate the problem with the staff.
This isn't meant to disparage Salvador's, but more attention to a few details could really up the quality of Sal's from pretty good to great.
If you look to the right of this page, under classifieds, you'll see a Ninaxu advertising for a job "Full Time English Teacher at i2." Don't bother.
First and foremost, the teaching experience is awful. You're class will be a revolving door of students, as upper managment constantly swaps students in and out of classes. You'll start to build a relationship with a student, and students will build relationships with eachother, only to be swapped to a different class with a different teacher. Not to mention, you'll be asked at the last minute to fill in for students you have not prepared to teach, because management would rather not cancel a class when a teacher is sick, because that lengthens the amount of time until the contract ends, thus depriving them of more money.
Are you sick? If you call in, you'll get a string of abusive WeChat messages from your boss complaining about your attitude. That is even if you have a medical excuse.
Leave the job, you'll get threatening messages after you have left.
Promises? What are those.
That leave they put in the contract, they have many ways to weasel out of approving your leave. My suggestion, take it ASAP.
The classroom materials are awful. You always are told that the private company needs you to sacrifice for their (profits) difficult needs. No in-classroom computers, in-fact just one computer for the entire office. A couple of broken down CD players, a box of disorganized CD's, and yours is almost always missing or being used by another teacher.
They insist that you use their book, but they don't provide the materials, such as flash-cards. So you spend a great deal of time doing tedious work to get ready for class. The books themselves are garbage. You'll be handed kids who don't know hello how are you, and the book has no phonics material, and really no vocabulary building exercises.
Also, the staff office of the Greenlake Campus was covered in human waste from a broken sewage pipe, and was not fixed for months. This is not a metaphor for life at i2.
You're Chinese colleagues will tell you to work harder, or give you lots of advice. But, when a child freaks out, and you need a Chinese staff member, they will be several floors away, gossiping at the reception desk. But, they are always able to inform on you, and tell you how you can do better.
You'll be asked to "volunteer" for the children at holiday parties. They'll try and guilt trip you. But, you are volunteering for a "for-profit" party, as the school charges parents quite a bit of money for their children to attend.
The marketing department is immoral to criminal. They play on the desperation of parents of children with learning disabilities. Lying, and telling them that their teacher (only 1 or 2 teachers there actually hold a certificate) not only holds a teaching certificate, but specializes in learning disabilities. There were autistic students, dyslexic students, and many other types of issues. They will be lucky if their child is taught by somebody with a generic TEFL certificate. Then, after signing the contract, they will make fun of the family and students they just signed up.
You'll notice that no veteran Kunming expats work at i2, most are imported (many from Russia, Boris from "Chicago".), or at least from other Chinese cities. Just, don't work here. It is an awful and immoral company, that will screw you and the cusomter over in the name of profits.
Excellent loal Italian place. The pizza is a nice Italian version with a tasty sauce. The food is good quality and the owner puts in a great deal of effort to put out a good product.
Getting Away: Solo in Siem Reap
Posted byYou can also take a train from Bangkok to the Cambodian border and a bus or 20-30 USD taxi from the border to Siem Reap.
My wife and I took the train, and it was quite lovely, you are rolling through the Thai jungle for most of the journey. I generally find that train>>>>bus.