Forums > Living in Kunming > Used car lots? There is a big one on the way out of Beichen. Follow Beichen DaDao eastwards, past the old B&Q and onto the third ring road. A couple of km up the road on the right is a big car sales area. I am pretty sure it is a car auction place. I may also sell grey imports.
Forums > Living in Kunming > computer advice? There is always Linux, which is open source. The office suite is not as flexible (powerful) as other products, but it is MS Office compatible. Also the range of APPs available for it is smaller than the range of APPs for MS Win OS, but it is getting better.
I have Linux Mint (like windows) on one of my old laptops, and because it is less memory hungry it runs fine on the 15+ years old machine. Because Mint looks similar to a Windows/Mac environment, it is pretty intuitive and pretty easy to adjust too.
I am sure that Linux products and choice of compatibles has moved forward a lot in the 4 years since I had it installed.
Forums > Living in Kunming > Transferring money into China Something I learned a while back, you need to be very specific about the questions you ask, and don't ask open questions.
The BOC employee may have assumed you were talking about cash, in its narrowest sense. You need to specifically state that you want to bring money in to purchase a house. If the bank staff still say no, ask to speak to a manager.
Also make sure you go to the main branch, as sub branch staff (even managers) are often less knowledgeable about their own bank's procedures.
Assuming it is possible for property purchases. If it is done properly, with all of the correct paperwork, you will then have the proper paperwork to take the money out again if you liquidate the property at a future date.
Forums > Living in Kunming > Anyone affected by flooding? Some roads in the xiaoqu were under about 100mm of water before dawn, and houses with basements were affected.
Anyone else affected?
Forums > Living in Kunming > Civilized Kunming On a seperate note. I see they already have the recycle/separation bins for sale in Metro. Not cheap at about 4-5x the price of Taobao.
Celebrating a Miao Christmas in Yunnan
Posted byFor many societies, once people have elevated to a level of 'security', through wealth or power, these people turn away from religion towards mammon.
Kunming's bike share options: A user guide
Posted byI would guess that a proportion of the money is being invested. Invested in setting up (dumping lots of bikes on the streets) in new cities to attract more deposits. If that is the case, there are parallels with Ponzi schemes.
Kunming's bike share options: A user guide
Posted byDidi are unlikely to go broke anytime soon, but even if OFO is owned by Didi, if it is running at a loss, Didi will offload it very quickly. Once the business case is established, or not, people will either re-invest or divest.
The OFO bikes are cheap, have a manual lock, no GPS, I assume no app except for payment. These are the bikes mostly seen ridden by kids, who often are riding a misappropriated machine. It looks like the OFO business model is lowest cost, and accept the losses of assets.
The MOBIKEs have remote locking, and GPS tracking. The bikes were custom built and were expensive to have made, but the app helps to find the nearest bike, and you can reserve them, to save you walking to a bike which in the meantime is hired by someone else. The MOBIKE business model seems to be larger upfront costs, but better service, and traceability of the assets.
I am not sure if the OFO business case is sustainable, only time will tell.
Report: Kunming to add two Metro lines
Posted byElevated trains would have been quicker, which is why they use them for long sections of track outside the city.
However, it would have requited tearing down whole neighborhoods, causing huge disruption to city life, not just traffic. Then there is the socio-economic impacts of closing down large areas of the city. Additionally, the large numbers of demolitions would have a major impact on air quality, and what do you with all of the building rubble.
Finally, the increased cost for the whole process; bearing in mind that cost was also a major factor in the lack of progress thus far.
Around Town: Kunming's secluded Lianhua Temple
Posted byIt might be a new guy, or there is some other visit on this week. It is probably worth trying again, and if the same guy is there, just tell him you are going up to the temple.