• New Concept Training School
• Dune Cafe
• Empire Foreign Language School
• Chicago Coffee
• Kunming Yu-Cong Enterprise Management Company
• China Highlights
• Keats School
• IC Holiday Serviced Apartments
• Ganesh Bar & Restaurant
• Bakery 88
• Sandra's
• Tenwest Mandarin School
• Chapter One
• The Box
• JKH Design
• Huiying Dental Clinic
• Heqi Serviced Office Provider
• Salvador's Coffee House

Latest Forum Posts

• • July 30, 2010
  • Forums > Living in Kunming > Patriotism
    

    Bias and racism transcends all cultures. Unfortunately, there are bigoted and ignorant people here in China as well. Just ignore it. However, if are up to it, perhaps you can confront the mother and discover the reason for the ignorance and provide a counterpoint. Bewared however, talking to people with strong convictions is like trying to teach a pig to dance. Anything you say will only be used to further their convictions and the use of logic is pointless as they will simply ignore it.

• • July 27, 2010
  • Forums > Living in Kunming > Beware US Consulate Chengdu
    

    JJ, interesting angle you have with the fraud thing. I think what they had in mind with that was fraud on the part of the applicant and not with the government or it's agents.

    I applaud your efforts but I think Bucko hit the nail on the head. The game is rigged in their favor and it would be difficult to get the politicians to care about the matter because quite frankly, the expat community isn't a very large constituency, most people back home wouldn't even leave the States once, in their entire lives let alone visiting an embassy/consulate to sponsor someone for a visa.

    Anyway, good luck to you, I'm sure you have all of our support.

    God bless our Vets

    Cheers~

• • July 27, 2010
  • Forums > Living in Kunming > Housing Prices
    

    PS...I should've proof-read it before I posted. My fourth graded teacher is going to be so pissed if she saw this....

    I'd just now realize the new redesign has an edit function... unfortunately, it only allows edits on the most recent post... d'oh!

• • July 27, 2010
  • Forums > Living in Kunming > Housing Prices
    

    Simple laws of supply and demand, and in a dash of speculation and viola. By modernizing Kunming and tearing old building in Kunming, this removed a lot of the housing supply available. All those peasant works have no place to live now and so need to look for new places to stay. By focusing economic development on urban areas rather than rural ones, this cause a lot of influx of people coming to the city to improve their livelihoods and this adding to the housing demand. And finally, most college grads once they finish their education, are not definitely not planning on moving back to the farm and milking the cows with their new found knowledge and so, also stay in the city to look for jobs. So you have a shrinking supply and increased demand. So economics 101 would tell you that prices should go up. The final fact is that the central government is now cracking down on housing speculation, ie, it is becoming more difficult to flip house and that's scaring off a lot of potential buys. And so what do these homeowners do? Rather than lowering the price to attract buyers, they now rent them out. And a funny thing happens in China, where as laws of economics would stipulate that increased competition should result in lowered prices, in China, it's actually the opposite. As people compete to make more money than the previous, they are bidding the price up because they know people will rent even if it is outrageous because they have no choice. Actually this does happen in free market societies and that's why most cities have rent control policies to keep thing in check.

• • July 24, 2010
  • Forums > Living in Kunming > About copywrite and royalties...
    

    Bernie
    At first I thought they were going to open a Salvador's in Dali and was asking about franchising rights from Salvador's in Kunming, ha!

    Foto,
    Copyright and royalties is at the bottom of a long list of problem for the Chinese government, i.e., they could careless, as witnessed by all the bootleg DVDs you find everywhere.

    Having said that, I don't know if China is a good comparison for Latvia. If you are planning on opening a small, single-entity coffeehouse, then I would worry about it too much. I don't think the agents of Salvador Dali's estate is combing through the streets of Latvia to look for infringement. However, if are planning to build a international Coffeehouse empire, eventually they will find out and irregardless of whether you've actually violated or not, expect an lawsuit to settle the matter.

    I'm not lawyer so I'll give a layman's option on this matter. If I recall correctly, it is an copyright only if the average consumer cannot distinguish the two. For example, if I open an clothing store called McDonald's, that's probably not going to be a copyright since most people would confusing clothing with hamburgers. But expect a call from McDonald's lawyers nonetheless.