Friday: Carneval party at The Hump Bar
The Hump Bar will be throwing a Carneval party Friday night, with Latin music and dancing plus special performances. Caipirinha will be on special for 15 yuan. Music starts at 10, entry is free.

Friday: Hiphop and streetdance night at Uprock
Uprock will host an evening of hiphop and streetdance tonight, with MC Sam and DanceTop joining DJs Miki and Echoo. Music starts at 10, entry is free.

Saturday: Scandinavian movie night at TCG Nordica
TCG Nordica will be hosting Scandinavian movie night on Saturday beginning at 8. The evening's featured film is "Songs from the Second Floor" by Swedish director Roy Andersson. The dark comedy won the Jury Prize at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival. The film will be followed by an English discussion, entry is free.

Saturday: Uprock Carnival costume party with DJ Kris
Uprock will be holding a carnival-themed costume party Saturday night with music provided by DJ Kris. Special punch will be available for five yuan per glass. Music starts at 10, entry is free.

Monday: Lush Farewell Fiesta at Uprock
Argentinian jazz band Lush has been playing six nights weekly at Soho in Kundu over the last several months and are now preparing to head back home. The band will be playing a farewell show at Uprock on Monday night beginning at 10. Entry is 20 yuan.

Friday: Jazz/Latin/Reggae party at Uprock
Uprock will be playing a mix of jazz, latin and reggae plus a special surprise tonight. Music starts at 10, entry is free.

Saturday: Kunming Ultimate Tournament Party at The Hump Bar
Saturday night The Hump Bar will host the official party for Kunming's first ultimate frisbee tournament. DJs Christian, Jon and Martin will provide the tunes from 10 to sunrise. Entry is free.

Saturday: Fluorescent 'Lightning Bug' party
Uprock will bust out the black lights on Saturday night and is encouraging people to dress up in fluorescent clothes, wear florescent face paint, or at the very least brush their teeth before showing up. Party starts at 10, entry is free.

Monday: Open mic and local showcase at Halfway House
For those looking to extend that weekend feeling, Halfway House will be holding an hour of open mic on Monday night from 9 to 10, with sign-up starting at 8. From 10 onward the stage will be taken over by Minjian Funk, Tony and the Degree Band, Rebecca/Fang Zhou/Liu Ke, local rappers Xishan, plus Cristina Sanchez and Lush.

Apparently Halfway is considering reviving its open mic nights, should enough people turn up this time. Entry is free.

Friday: DJ Showcase at Mix Club
Tonight Mix Club in Kundu will host four of Kunming's hardest working DJs and will be giving away free beer from 9:30 to 11:30. DJs Kris, Martin, Shonny and Christian are scheduled to provide musical entertainment at Mix, which is located on the south end of the Kundu compound, near the Guofang Lu entrance. Don't be surprised if the bar is busy – it will be offering cocktails (gin/rum/vodka/whiskey + mixer) all night for 15 yuan.

Saturday: Dance performance at TCG Nordica
TCG Nordica will be hosting a dance performance featuring Chinese and American dancers and covering different genres including hiphop, jazz, modern and traditional. The performance begins at 8:00, entry is 10 yuan.

Saturday: Matu's Birthday Party at The Hump Bar
Local musician and man-about-town Matu will be celebrating his birthday at The Hump Bar on Saturday night, playing with his mates in the Tribal Moons and DJing with fellow Moonster DJ Make afterward. Festivities kick off at ten, entry is free.

Editor's note: Due to a mistake on the flyer for tonight's Mix Club party, this post originally stated that cocktails were "all-you-can-drink for 15 yuan". We have been contacted by the organizer, who regrets any misunderstanding he may have caused among GoKunming readers.

Friday: Legopulver at Halfway House
Norwegian jazz/rock band Legopulver will play its first of two Kunming gigs this weekend at Halfway House tonight at 9:00. The band consists of guitar, bass and drums. Entry is free.

Friday: Sam's Birthday Masquerade at Speakeasy Bar
Sam Debell of Speakeasy Bar will be celebrating his birthday tonight with a masquerade party and cheap 10 kuai glasses of Jagermeister. Music will be provided by DJs Martin, Jon and Christian.

Saturday: Union Music Festival in Tuanjie Village
A music festival highlighting local rock and hiphop is scheduled to take place from 1 to 11 pm on Saturday, featuring some of Kunming's biggest local acts including Noise Addiction, Tribal Moons, No Answer (打死我也不说), Dark Cosmos (黑宇), Triatic (恶性循环) and Broken String (断弦).

Our info about this event is limited, but we do know the organizers intend on holding it at the Tuanjie Village Bai Leisure Garden (团结乡白族休闲园) a bit more than 20 km northwest of Kunming. To get to Tuanjie Village, take the road to the Bamboo Temple until getting to the Tuanjie Village (团结乡), where a right turn takes you straight there - look for the three Bai-style white pagodas.

Saturday: Legopulver at TCG Nordica
Legopulver will play its second show in Kunming at the spacious gallery of TCG Nordica on Saturday night. Admission to the 8 pm show is 30 yuan for adults, 15 yuan for students and 10 yuan for children.

Saturday: Yunnan-Vietnam Female Artists Exchange at Yunart Gallery
Yunart Gallery will host an opening for its new exhibition "In the course of our contacts..." which highlights the works of female artists from Yunnan and Vietnam on Saturday night, beginning at 8:00. Entry to the opening is free.

Saturday: The Hump Bar's 8th Birthday Celebration
The Hump Bar is celebrating its 8th birthday on Saturday night with free buffet and beer from 7 to 9 pm. After mealtime the bar will be throwing an Afro-Latin dance party until morning.

Monday: P.K.14 at Speakeasy Bar
P.K.14 one of the better-known 'it' bands in the Beijing rock scene at the moment, will play Speakeasy Bar on Monday night for the Kunming stop on its national tour. Entry to the 10 pm show is 30 yuan.

It is high season for moving in Kunming right now, with many people moving into the city for the first time and many others moving out of the city or upgrading their living situation from the previous year. One of the main discoveries one makes when moving house is how much stuff one accumulates over time – especially clothes.

Throwing away unwanted clothing that is still wearable is wasteful anywhere in the world, but especially in Yunnan, which despite having increasingly wealthy urban centers still has millions of rural poor who could use new clothing.

Since last December, The Hump Group – which runs the Hump Bar in Jinma Biji Fang – has been accepting unwanted clothing for distribution to Yunnan's rural poor, especially in the Nujiang area, near the border with Myanmar. The first delivery of clothing – more than 7,000 items – made it to the Nujiang area just weeks before one of China's worst winters in decades.

Since then, General Manager of the Hump Group Sun Haibo has been working to expand the donated clothing network's reach throughout Yunnan via a donor network of restaurants and guesthouses around the province. Donations now come from as far away as Zhejiang and Beijing.

On the village end of things, the Christian Association of Yunnan was one of the organizations that has been crucial to the program's success – with their numerous churches, they had a ready network that could identify villages in need and help deliver the clothes.

So far over 15 tons of clothes have been delivered to villages all over Nujiang, as well as other places like Zhaotong in northeast Yunnan and even a few villages in neighboring Guizhou province. It has become fairly common for a mysterious package of clothes to show up at the Hump Bar, or some of the clientele to drop a few pieces of unwanted clothes off.

In exchange for their generosity, donors get a sticker showing two clasping hands and the words 'I helped' in Chinese and English. The motto for the campaign is: 'We don't want your money. We just want your clothes.'

If you want to contribute, all clothing must be clean and wearable – any kind of clothing for any season is welcome. Donations can be dropped off at The Hump Bar, call 3646229 for more information.

Friday: Tribal Moons at The Hump Bar
The Tribal Moons will play their first show back from their southeast China tour at The Hump Bar tonight. The Moons will be joined by the musical stylings of Lumberjack Jon. The show starts at 9:30, admission is free.

Friday: Wild West Fourth at Speakeasy Bar
Speakeasy Bar will go Yank for an evening with a wild west-themed party featuring DJ Latino and DJ Yan. Glasses of bourbon and cola will be on special for 12 yuan. The party starts at 10 pm, admission is free.

Saturday: Zhang Quan at Halfway House
Chinese folk veteran Zhang Quan will play Saturday night at Halfway House. This Saturday night's show is entitled Ballad of the Yellow River, which will include re-presentation of Zhang's earlier works, Chinese northwestern folk songs and his recent dombra and harmonica works. The music starts at 9:30 pm, admission is 15 yuan.

Saturday: Caribbean Heat dance party at the Hump Bar
The Hump Bar will be throwing an all-night "Caribbean Heat" dance party on Saturday night featuring zouk, samba, reggae, salsa, meringue, Swahili hiphop, South African house and more. Mojitos and Cuba Libres will be on special for 12 yuan. Music starts at 9:30, admission is free.

Image: Associated Press

Friday: English movie and discussion at Chicago Coffee
Chicago Coffee will host its weekly English movie and discussion at 7pm tonight. Admission is free with any purchase – call 5389288 for movie details.

Friday: Earthquake benefit dance party at TC/G Nordica
Beginning at 8 pm tonight TC/G Nordica will host a dance party with all proceeds from the door going to the earthquake relief effort in Sichuan. Admission is 10 yuan.

Friday: Jiabe school benefit at The Hump Bar
Beginning at 9pm on Friday night The Hump Bar will hold a benefit show to raise money for renovations to a dilapidated school in the small Tibetan village of Jiabe in northwestern Yunnan - see this post for more details. Performers from Makye Ame Tibetan restaurant will start off the evening, followed by the Tribal Moons, Lumberjack Jon and DJ Fan. Admission is free with performers donating their remuneration to the school in addition to 30 percent of bar takings.

Saturday: Excess Luggage at TC/G Nordica
Saturday night TC/G Nordica will be hosting Norwegian piano-organ-drum trio Excess Luggage for an 8 pm show. Admission is 30 yuan.

Jiabe kids image: Matthieu Lelievre

In the last several weeks the tragedies of the Myanmar Cyclone and Wenchuan earthquake have shaken Kunming residents into giving what they can to help their neighbors who have fallen victims to natural disaster.

Seeing how impoverished many of these areas were prior to their respective disasters is a reminder of how many areas in this geographically varied and ethnically diverse part of Asia are in need of all kinds of assistance – even without disasters.

This Friday night at The Hump Bar, a free evening of music will be held to benefit the only school in the small Tibetan village of Jiabe (佳碧). The benefit show was organized by Kunming resident Matthieu Lelievre, who first visited Jiabe – his fiancée's hometown - four years ago.

Located in a Tibetan area of northwest Yunnan, Jiabe has a population of 130, with 30 primary school students. Remote and impoverished, the town is located near the Lancang Jiang, the headwaters of the Mekong River.

"The village used to be the county seat of Yunling until 25 years ago - they had all the facilities there," Lelievre said. "Then there was a flood which destroyed much of the village, especially government buildings."

"There was no damage to the one school in the village, but the government moved to another village, and the school hasn't changed since then - it's a 30-year-old building in pretty bad condition. When I saw it, me and my fiancée thought it would be nice to do something so that the children get a better study environment."

The benefit party at The Hump Bar is aimed at not only raising cash to renovate the school, but to also recruit volunteers to teach Chinese and English to the students of Jiabe village, Lelievre added.

Starting at 9 pm, the benefit show will begin with a Tibetan musical performance featuring performers from Makye Ame Tibetan restaurant. Afterward, entertainment will include a performance by The Tribal Moons plus DJ sets by Fan (formerly known as DJ Christian) and Lumberjack Jon.

All performers will donate their normal remuneration to the school and The Hump Bar has pledged to donate 30 percent of bar sales from the evening. A donation box will also be present for those who want to donate directly. Admission to the benefit show is free. For more information, call Matthieu Lelievre at 13708732507.

Update: Matthieu Lelievre contacted GoKunming and said the benefit raised 5,000 yuan for Jiabe's school He also requests that anyone willing to teach Chinese or English at the school contacts him at 13708732507 as teachers are urgently needed there.

Related article:

Earthquake benefit raises more than 10,000 yuan