If you found it hard to get hold of some traditionally-cooked turkey this week, think of the lengths you would've had to go to in the '80s. Si Bu Xiang tells of just that: how one enterprising foreign-affairs officer secured a big turkey for Americans living in Chengdu in 1981.

Recent TV series Snail House, otherwise known as Dwelling Narrowness, has been the hottest thing on the telly this year with its tales of mistresses, corrupt cadres and, erm, housing developments. Chinayouren enthuses about the show and tells us why it's so popular.

Danwei interviews Jonathan Watts, former China correspondent for the Guardian, about climate change and Copenhagen, and James Fallows reacts to comments, and then "follows up" on a much-discussed opinion piece in the Guardian about China getting its way in Copenhagen.

You can see how Chinese medicine works and whether it can cure the common cold thanks to an enlightening e-mail exchange on My Health Beijing in which our favorite physician, Dr. Richard, quizzes an American doctor trained in Chinese Medicine about how TCM approaches 'ganmao.'

It turns out that Taobao is more than just a treasure chest of just about anything you could ever want to buy: It can also be a source of humor. Veggie Discourse has a funny post of exchanges between sellers and their disgruntled and rather witless customers. (Requires proxy)

And Shanghaiist has gone list crazy. If you have a penchant for numbered paragraphs, check out the top ten sports stories, the top 'bubble stories' of 2009, China's five most significant stories of the decade ... and many more.

Southwest China rail network to be upgraded
Rail lines linking Yunnan, Sichuan, Guizhou, Guangxi and Chongqing will be upgraded "at an early date" according to Yan Hexiang, deputy director of the Ministry of Railways' development planning department.

The ministry plans on adding more than 50,000 kilometers of new rail lines to China's less-developed west by 2020. Lines slated for improvement include the Kunming-Nanning, Chengdu-Guiyang, and Chongqing-Guiyang lines. China's west consists of more than 70 percent of the country's land area and is home to 370 million people.

Myanmar to build rail link to Yunnan
Myanmar will build a railroad connecting the border town of Muse with Yunnan's Jieguo, located near Ruili, according to Chinese media reports. The rail line is expected to boost the already flourishing trade between Myanmar and Yunnan, which is currently conducted with cars and trucks.

Since 1998, Myanmar has established five border trade areas with China, including Muse, Lwejei, Laizar, Chinshwehaw and Kambaiti. The country is planning on adding a sixth in the Kokang region, where in August of this year the Myanmar army overran an ethnic Chinese militia, sending thousands of refugees into Yunnan.

The border trade area at Muse primarily sends agricultural products, seafood, timber and gems into Yunnan, with steel, construction materials, computers, farm machinery and other finished products flowing in from China.

Carbon credits helping Yunnan build wind power infrastructure
Yunnan is using the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) to rapidly build up its wind power network with foreign investment, according to an AFP report. The CDM allows industrialized nations to fulfill some greenhouse gas reduction requirements by investing in clean energy technologies in developing nations.

The Zhemoshan wind farm in Dali – located at an altitude of 3,000 meters – is the highest wind farm in China. Carbon credits produced by the project, which has been funded by a US$45 million loan from the French Development Agency, will be purchased by Dutch bank Rabobank, according to a representative from Sinohydro, the Chinese company which manages the farm.

It is hoped that the Dali wind farm and others in Yunnan will make up for the winter dropoff in hydroelectric power generation by the province's extensive network of dams.

China has gone from little installed wind generation capacity five years ago to 12.2 gigawatts of installed capacity last year, making it the world's fourth-largest wind power producer, behind only the US, Germany and Spain.

Forbes China's newest rankings of the top 100 mainland Chinese cities for doing business suggest that as a business destination, Kunming and western China lag behind much of the rest of China but are starting to catch up.

This year Kunming was rated China's 60th-best city for doing business by Forbes. The ranking may not be impressive in itself, but Kunming was one of the fastest-rising cities in the list, jumping 37 places from its previous ranking of 97.

Not surprisingly, Forbes ranked Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen the top three mainland cities for doing business. Provinces with the most cities on Forbes' list include Jiangsu, which has 16 cities on the list, and Zhejiang and Shandong, which have 14 cities each.

What may be surprising to some, this year's rankings – the sixth time the magazine has published the list – suggest an increasing level of competition between Chinese cities. They also reflect the rising economic clout of China's central and western regions vis-à-vis the country's coast, where external demand and investment, which have contracted during the global recession, play a bigger role in local economies.

All major economic hubs in central China moved up in the Forbes rankings this year, including number 14 Wuhan (up 19 places), number 25 Zhengzhou (up 37), number 28 Changsha (up eight), number 61 Nanchang (up two) and number 62 Taiyuan, which made its first appearance on the list.

The once laggard region of western China has also been rising in economic importance. Remaining at number 12, Chengdu leads the way for western Chinese cities including number 24 Chongqing, number 31 Xi'an and Kunming. Three western cities made their debut on the list, with Nanning – Kunming's major rival for Southeast Asian markets – entering at the 54 spot, Guiyang at number 92 and Lanzhou at 93.

Construction on the rail line connecting Dali with Lijiang has been completed and will be running in time for the National Day holiday during the first week of October, according to a YunnanNet report. Construction on the rail line began in 2004.

The 164 kilometer rail line passes through some serious mountain country, with more than half of the trip made up of bridges or tunnels. Bridges account for 22 kilometers of the journey, with 78 kilometers passing through tunnels.

The Dali-Lijiang (大丽) line will begin at Dali East Station, traveling along the eastern shore of Erhai Lake with stops at Shangguan (上关), Xiyi (西邑) and Heqing (鹤庆) before arriving in Lijiang. At present, information about departure times and trip duration is unavailable.

Lijiang is one of China's most popular tourist destinations – in the first half of this year it was visited by 3.44 million tourists. The opening of a new rail connection with Dali and Kunming should translate to even more travelers visiting the city, which features attractions including its old town (a UNESCO World Heritage site), Jade Dragon Snow Mountain and the nearby Tiger Leaping Gorge.

The extension of the Kunming-Dali rail line to Lijiang brings a proposed Kunming-Lhasa rail line one step closer to reality. The line will next be extended to Shangri-la and then to Lhasa.

The Kunming-Lhasa rail link would make Yunnan's capital the third provincial capital in western China with a direct rail link to Tibet after Xining in Qinghai and Chengdu in Sichuan, which will begin construction on a Chengdu-Lhasa rail line this month.

Railway officials have detained a man for stabbing two people to death and injuring another on the 2640 train from Kunming to Chengdu after a dispute over the man's alleged "loud humming", according to a Xinhua report.

The arrested man, who police said is surnamed Yan, allegedly got into an argument around 10:35 am on Saturday with three other male passengers, over Yan's loud humming while listening to his portable CD player.

The other passengers, surnamed Luo, Ren and Wu, dragged Yan down to the floor of their train car and began to beat him. Yan then pulled out a folding knife and retaliated, stabbing all three of his attackers.

Luo died onboard the train and Ren died afterward in a hospital. Wu is hospitalized in stable condition.

Employees aboard the train said they heard passengers scream that someone had been killed. By the time they had made it to the scene of the fight, it was allegedly already over.

Police are still investigating the case and have not said if Yan will be charged with any crimes.

China is set to experience a total solar eclipse (日全食) tomorrow morning. The shadow cast by the Moon will track across China from West to East, allowing viewers in Tibet, Yunnan, Sichuan, Chongqing, Hubei, Hunan, Jiangxi, Jiangsu, Shanghai and Zhejiang to observe totality. This total eclipse has the longest duration of any in the 21st century, and is likely to be the one observable by the most people.

To see the total eclipse in Yunnan, you'll need to be North of Diqing, near to Yunnan's border with Tibet or Sichuan. Viewers there can expect around four and a half minutes of totality, starting at around 9am Beijing time. In downtown Kunming, there'll be no total eclipse, but the partial eclipse (日偏食) will reach around 85% obscuration at around 9:08am.

For lots of eclipse data, take a look here. If you're reading from Sichuan, check out Jane's great post on GoChengdoo.

An attempted robbery on a passenger bus traveling from Pu'er to Kunming was repelled by bus passengers resulting in the death of one of the two thieves while the other clings to life in a hospital, according to local media reports.

At 5:53 am on Sunday, the bus was on the Anchu expressway near Lufeng when two men on board the bus suddenly produced knives and attempted to rob the vehicle's passengers.

According to Kunming police, two bus drivers and the passengers engaged in a life-or-death struggle with the men in which the two drivers and two passengers were injured. The injured drivers and passengers have been released from hospitalization.

The two would-be robbers, both men from Guangxi Autonomous Region, were armed with a 20 centimeter knife and a large pair of scissors. Initially one of the men threatened a female passenger with the knife while the other man used the scissors to force the driver to stop the bus.

Two male passengers engaged the man with the knife while the driver and another driver on the bus fought the man with the scissors. After both men had been subdued – during which both of them were seriously injured – the bus drove to Kunming's Nanyao Bus Station, where one of the men was pronounced dead.

The other man is currently in the intensive care unit of a Kunming hospital in critical condition.

The foiled robbery was the second deadly bus incident in southwestern China in a two-day span. On Friday, a bus heading into Chengdu burst into flames, killing 27 passengers and hospitalizing 72. It has not been determined if the fire was accidental or intentional.

From June 22 to 30 in Seville, Spain, UNESCO's World Heritage Committee will review a list of hundreds of candidate sites proposed by countries around the world as part of the World Heritage Site selection process. In the end, only 20 or so sites will make the cut and be named World Heritage Sites, putting them firmly on global tourism's radar.

Each country submitting candidate sites must maintain a 'tentative' list of sites from which it can submit two candidates to the selection committee. This year, China's tentative list features 52 different sites, including three in Yunnan. China currently has 37 World Heritage Sites.

The Yunnan sites on China's tentative list include Dali Cangshan Mountain and Erhai Lake Scenic Spot, the Hani Terraces of Yuanyang and the lesser-known Chengjiang fossil lagerstätte at Maotian Mountain. While Dali, Yuanyang and Chengjiang are by no means unknown to travelers, being selected a World Heritage Site would bring new tourist revenue – and new developmental issues.

Yunnan is currently home to three World Heritage Sites: Old Town of Lijiang, Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas and South China Karst. Here's a quick look at the sites that could be selected in June:

Dali
Set between the towering Cangshan Mountains and the expansive waters of Erhai Lake, Dali has been a mainstay on the China backpacker circuit for more than a decade.

The agricultural know-how of the ethnic Bai people native to the area made Dali an important rice production base in dynastic times. This wealth fuelled the rise of the Nanzhao Kingdom, which was centered in Dali and at its height stretched from northern Laos, Thailand and Myanmar up into Chengdu and the Sichuan Basin before incurring the wrath of the Tang Dynasty.

Today Dali's old town is the most popular destination for travelers, but small guesthouses have also been popping up around Erhai Lake at Xizhou and Shuanglang. At the end of this year a new train line will link Dali and Lijiang.

Should Dali become a World Heritage Site, it would likely face many of the same development-versus-preservation problems that Lijiang has dealt with.

Yuanyang
Yuanyang and its rice terraces have long been an 'off the beaten track' option for travelers to Yunnan wishing for something different from the Dali-Lijiang-Tiger Leaping Gorge route. With just a fraction of Dali's tourism, Yuanyang offers a much more "local" experience for travelers – there is very little tourism infrastructure, roads around the terraces are often quite rough, and dining options are rather limited.

In terms of scenery, the more than 13,000 hectares of rice terraces around Yuanyang offer some of the most stunning natural images to be found in China, especially at the beginning of the year when the terraces are filled with water creating a striking mirror effect.

For relatively poor Yuanyang, World Heritage Site status would be tantamount to winning the lottery. The main question would be how much of the incoming tourist revenue would make its way into the pockets of locals.

Chengjiang fossil lagerstätte
The least-known of the three Yunnan sites on the tentative list, Chengjiang's Lagerstätte – a sedimentary deposit rich in fossils – is centered around Maotian Shan, located just north of the city of Chengjiang and picturesque Fuxian Lake, one of China's deepest and cleanest lakes.

While it is ignored by travel guidebooks, Chengjiang and its Lagerstätte is quite famous among paleontologists for the fossilized sea life it contains, collectively referred to as 'Chengjiang Fauna'. Chengjiang Fauna is considered one of the 'Three faunas of the evolution of early life forms' along with Burgess Shale Fauna in western Canada and the Ediacaran Fauna of South Australia.

The Chengjiang Lagerstätte recently made news around the world when Yunnan and UK scientists announced that they had found the earliest example of collective behavior there in the form of 525 million-year-old crustacean fossils linked together.

Already a popular weekend getaway for wealthy Kunmingers, Chengjiang would likely experience a rapid increase in international travelers as well as Chinese from other parts of the country were it to be named a heritage site.

Chengjiang fossil image: Nature.com