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Forums > Living in Kunming > Thanksgiving

Peter what are you talking about? Sucking tits my ass! Thanksgiving is not like pledging allegiance to the flag, or whatever you might want to do, and thanking God is very much optional in the US. If I wanted to thank God for anything, it would not be for a modern nation state - He did not 'settle' North America, and I'm not at all sure he'd like the way it was done. I can respect the Pilgrim's point of view, c.1621. I won't pursue the issue of Native Americans. Get the flag out of the turkey - Thanksgiving is an American cultural festival, and there are things about the culture that are worth appreciating, though we may not agree as to which ones those are. Don't believe the hype.

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Forums > Travel Yunnan > medical exam for Z-visa

NOthing to worry about for blood tests and x-rays in Kunming No.2 hospital (personal experience), and I wouldn't worry about the others either.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Thanksgiving

@Geezer: Agree with all you've said. survival was certainly the main point, thank God, etc. Unsurprising sort of shindig. Good reason to eat.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Thanksgiving

Would help if people could separate cultural affinities and practices from political convictions. Despite all the talk of multiculturalism, it seems that many don't seem to be able to do that. Something important missing here.
Hope everybody who may have been drawn to celebrating US Thanksgiving had a good meal.

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The great thing in the Kunming Museum is the pillar from the Nanzhao Kingdom, which shows clearly that it is much too simple to consider that 'Yunnan' was simply one part of 'China' 1300 years ago.

Magnifico is right - the main concern is profit, and to this end brains are cheerfully twisted through advertising that preys on insecurities derived from the past: "Buy a car and be modern, with a face larger than the moon!" - minor alterations in this message have made it work everywhere; locally the traffic-jam situation in Kunming is the result (almost magically created within a mere 5 years or so - those who have been around awhile can tell you that there were then no taxi or bus problems 5-6 years ago). Now profits can be made by building an underground train system at enormous cost, to relieve the problem that served the competitive greed of corporations and nations (Game of Thrones: You win or you die) rather than the needs of the population.

I don't understand '...absolutely a capitalist venture, depending on how you look at it.' Also, the article mentions that the rubber was started in the mid-50s, but expanded greatly in the mid-90s - e.g., with government aid to privatized smallholders.

On a grander scale, it's all about capitalism - rubber first planted in time of competition with globally-capitalist world of nations armed to advance their own economic interests; Communist movement was an attempt to break with that, didn't work; the solution, if there will be one (quite likely not - no guarantees from evolutionary theory) cannot simply be 'capitalist', since that's what's brought us to the current state of mutual planetary destruction, which continues to be advanced with every private car sold.

Peter99 - "hundreds of years"? I think it's been going on since agriculture was invented and class society came into being, built on the possibility of creating, and 'privatising', a surplus.

'the crap that China builds are not made to last' - perhaps an overstatement, and I don't think there was anything structurally wrong with the workers cultural palace. I always liked the building/institution because it represented something from the earlier heavy-'socialist' period that was not at all a bad idea - ie, we hear of the inefficiencies and over-the-top political campaigns etc. of that period all the time now, but it wasn't ALL bad. And now sometimes the baby goes out with the bath water (e.g., rural health arrangements, once based on scarcity of health facilities and personnel but with a real impetus for equality and decent across-the-board development).

Reviews

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Not quite what you'd call a jumping place, but not bad at all for rather standard US-type meals, not overly expensive, and with a really good salad bar that's cheap, or free with most dinner dishes after 5:30PM. You can get a bottle of beer or even wine if you really want to, but I've never seen anybody do it - maybe that's just to take out. Chinese Christian run, and they hire people with physical disadvantages, who are pleasant and helpful. Frequented by foreign (mostly North American) Christians and Chinese Christians - was started by a Canadian couple associated with Bless China (previously, Project Grace), who are no longer here, but no religious pressure or any of that. Steaks are nothing special, and I avoid the Korean dishes, which I've had a few times but which did not impress me.

As a shop and bakery, it's very good bread at reasonable prices, of various kinds (Y18 for a good multigrain loaf that certainly weighs well over a pound. Other stuff too, like granola and oatmeal that is local, as well as imported things, including American cornflakes and so forth, which some people seem to require.

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Large portions, seriously so with the pizza, which is Brooklyn/American style, I guess. Convivial, conversational, good place to drink with good folks on both sides of the bar, especially after about 9PM.

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Really good pizza and steaks. The wine machine fuddles me when I'm a bit fuddled, & seems unnecessary. Good folks on both sides of the bar.