Both have their strengths and weaknesses. Neither place appears to make it easy to just turn up and live for an extended period, and that is fine (though I still think the 2008 Olympic visa changes should be relaxed! It's like getting blood out of a stone to get a visa to come visit a place you've lived for 10 years!). Cost-wise, with the changes in the Chinese internal economy and the exchange rate Thailand is definitely cheaper to go and live at the moment, though this was not the case in the past. Some other areas it excels over Yunnan are internationalism (particularly in Bangkok; and anyway this is a double-edged sword), cultural facilities (museums, libraries, music and art scene, events, etc.), internet speeds, international transport links, general lack of bureaucratic hassles, and access to beaches. Yunnan is cooler, has greater climatic variety, has beautiful mountains and great rivers, and thankfully avoids that (behind the scenes, frequent, Thai assumption that) 'all farang are walking ATMs and sex tourists' type attitude. Yunnanese people, particularly from smaller areas, are generally really open and honest, and didn't get up in the morning to take a chunk out of you-or-some-other-farang's wallet. Hehe.

It's a credit to GoKunming and to China's increasing openness that this discussion can occur in a public forum.

While there have been definite integration policies in play during the latter part of the 20th century (re: languages available in mass media, languages available in education, questionably enforced script changes for some minorities, etc.) it makes sense to look at (mostly the same) minorities across the border in Vietnam, Laos and Burma to see some alternate versions of the potential present for traditional peoples of the greater Yunnan region ("Zomia").

While I certainly maintain some reservations regarding some of those recent policies, after spending time in all of those places (except Burma, where I have been to the Yunnan and Laos borders in multiple places over a decade period), I think it is fair to say that generally, those traditional peoples of the region who are based within Yunnan have greater access to education and technology, relative freedom of movement (socio-economically) and greater 'standard of living' by de-facto global perspective (though this, economically rationalized view, has serious limitations) than their peers over the borders. In this sense, it is fair to say that the government is definitely doing a good job. So, congratulations to the local authorities: I know I wouldn't want that burden!

Interestingly, it might be noted by other participants that the initial serious integration of Yunnan with the rest of China occurred under a Central Asia born Muslim from Bokhara in Turkmenistan, who was a personal bodyguard of the Khan at the dawn of the Yuan Dynasty and effectively retired to Yunnan to take up the historically very difficult task of attempting to govern and bring under control this formerly wild borderland. He is known to have advocated (personally, to the emperor) the careful application of unique policy exceptions within Yunnan, for example removing the requirement (which he claimed as untenable) that all commerce be conducted within Chinese money. Apparently the policies served their purpose, though the apparent anti-foreign sentiment at the dawn of the succeeding Ming Dynasty culled the family's size (through apparent murders) as well as their political influence. Despite this, his great (great?) grandson was Zheng He, the (vindictively Ming authority-enforced?) eunuch-admiral at the turn of the Ming Dynasty who took Chinese treasure fleets as far as here in Indonesia, India, the Middle East and East Africa. (Just yesterday I visited a mosque and cafe in eastern Java named after him.)

Needed ID just to get a train an hour west of Chengdu to see the ancient irrigation works last December. Didn't have a passport so after a discussion and a growing queue they agreed to just enter the same as my brother's and increment the last digit, hah!

Needed ID just to get a train an hour west of Chengdu to see the ancient irrigation works last December. Didn't have a passport so after a discussion and a growing queue they agreed to just enter the same as my brother's and increment the last digit, hah!

As per Ouyang's comments: as of a few months back when I was last inside the great firewall: VPN is needed to popular trackers, but any torrent itself will work fine. Ian's comment on encryption is pertinent - no idea if it's required, but it's a good setting to enable anyway. Also try randomizing your port numbers. Also check out VeryCD - a Shanghai guy's tracker for emule stuff. It's mostly in Chinese, but way fast inside China, and a good alternative to torrents. For TV or film, check out PPTV and other services which work great inside China. But don't trust that software on your main system if possible - run it in a VM (see virtualbox.org/ or vmware.com/)