Tzu Chi Foundation (慈济, CiJi) often travel (via hired chartered buses) to rural outskirts 50-150km (or farther) from Kunming to provide supplies & assistance to those in need.
This Kunming-based charity organization may welcome foreign English teachers for their frequent missions. Not sure. You'll have to touch base with the Tzu Chi volunteer leaders (info end of post).
Many of the members are Buddhists, but you don't have to be one to join. Compassion & time, all that are required. Tzu Chi has world-wide reach. Their members consist of retired or active professionals with day jobs who find free time to help the impoverished, the sick, the foster children, or the elders.
For reference, here's an old English article published by their foundation, titled "Tzu Chi Delivers Winter Aid to Thousands Across China - Yunnan:"
Then POTUS Bill Clinton couldn’t dissuade the caning of American graffiti kid in Singapore. Granted punishment strokes were reduced as a show of diplomatic goodwill.
The most infamous among Singapore's laws was forbidding gum chewing. If memory serves right, the gum ban was the city-state's response to a bygone social protest of sticking gum all over the transit system.
That said, officers eschewed enforcement of gum chewing. Trivial restrictions are regularly overlooked to avoid reigniting social unrest. Outside Orchard Road, locals chew gums (smuggled from Malaysian border) or spit regardless. After all, they're just gum, not guns.
Department store bathroom smokers will annoyingly persist. Cameras won't be installed in WCs anytime soon...
but outside smokey water closets, the advent of A.I. surveillance w/ automatic social credit deductions may pick up the slack in the cat & mouse enforcement game.
Newly developed machine learning cameras will be upgraded with capabilities of identifying civilians by their walking gait and body shape in the event faces are concealed from view. Detection accuracy will be in question, but incrementally fine-tuned. That’s the neural network power of machine learning.
This harks back to the discussion from another thread on why vehicles have begun yielding to pedestrians at intersections.
Rules are abided when laws are strictly and automatically enforced. Civility ensues when drivers receive instant text messages of ticket penalties as caught by automated traffic cameras. Just don't read the messages while driving.
---------
In regards to popular online gaming, which Chinese youths are seemingly addicted to these days. It’s my understanding Tencent Holdings Limited (parent of WeChat/QQ) monopolizes the gaming industry in China.
Piggyback off the omnipresence of smartphones, Tencent’s multiplayer online battles such as role-playing Honour of Kings harbor 200 million monthly subscribers. This and other popular blockchain esports require players to login and verify age in order to connect with the vast online community of gamers in real-time. These aren’t the standalone, offline games one would download from torrent magnets.
Like Alipay/Wepay cashless payment services @tiger mentioned, players’ personal records and transaction history are logged. Gaming accounts with mandatory age verification are linked to police database. So for the vast majority, they can and will be traced.
Tencent will readily hand over jurisdiction of user profiles if called upon from higher power. Minors or adolescents who play nonstop would be automatically logged off from the games. The "nanny" eyes of T.J. Eckleburg will be watching your child.
For those heading northwest next month, you're in luck!
The new high speed rail section from Dali to Lijiang is scheduled to run in December. The 161 km public maiden voyage will only take 50 minutes. Hence, approximately 3 hours from Kunming to Lijiang (vice versa) via the high speed rail.
which begs the question. When is surveillance too much?
Like Ray Bradbury, dystopian novelists paint doom & gloom not to predict the future, but to prevent it. Figuratively & literally speaking, firefighters create burnout control lines to prevent the flames from escaping the boundaries...
apparently the downwind of surveillance and societal control is blowing faster in our direction than anticipated.
I've presented you the blue pill... now for the red pill, deeper down the rabbit hole we go:
Most landlords of guesthouse properties consist of local Dali residents, who've rented out their sought after lakeside locations to tenants all across China. From Sichuan to Dongbei, these guesthouse tenants transmigrated to Dali, boldly investing in infrastructural renovations that transformed the outlook of the town... synergizing modern eclectic flair with traditional, architectural nuances of the Bai ethnic minority... en route to a richer tapestry of colors.
Like the soul searchers drifting from breakup, free-spirited artists/poets/musicians, and couples escaping the bustling cities in search of a romantic, rustic getaway... out-of-town entrepreneurs and sightseers alike have congregated here in collective solitude to form a vibrant community of guesthouses/eateries/bars/shops enveloping the lake. This rendezvous melting pot of domiciled voyagers in addition to the picturesque mountain lake backdrop, have fused the mystique and the word-of-mouth draw of Dali.
Over the years, local Dali landlords have notoriously increased rent prices manifolds, reaping the rewards of the bygone tourist boom. There are numerous accounts in the Chinese grapevine of tenants selling off everything back home in order to start their new life as Dali guesthouse owners. Many do so by taking out high interest bank loans to absorb the high rents and refurbish/operation costs... only to be suspended indefinitely by the new environmental protection mandate before breaking even, let alone turning a profit.
For the past year, hospitality/dining related activities within 100-200 meters of Erhai Lake were ordered to cease. Without customers nor steady income, many owners unwillingly abandoned their Dali dream to return home, sunk costs notwithstanding. The laketown once blooming with life has since shriveled into a barren, quasi-ghost town. The bleak contrast from its flourishing heydays has turned off many would be vacationers.
Dali locals with fingers on the pulse have griped on WeChat Circles/Weibo feeds that shutdowns have drastically reduced tourism. Citywide revenues along the entire vertical & horizontal supply chain have seen much better days. From local fishermen & farmers... to Dali women & men that rely on wages in housekeeping, laundry, dish-washing, serving, cooking, transport/delivery, construction, etc.... to aforementioned "waidi" owners of these discontinued establishments & services that once put the local workforce on payroll.
One notable complaint on social media was a local granny who as a living does street-side hair braiding for female tourists. She complained about not landing one single business for an entire month.
Her distraught voice resonate the sentiments of EV renters, street vendors, mom & pop shops, mid-size stores, restaurants, and bars in Dali's Old Town where closures aren't even enforced, yet all indirectly hit hard by the decline in tourism... don't get me wrong,
I'm all for protecting the ecology of Erhai Lake, but it definitely comes with social ramifications. The recovery will take some time.
Right, but most of us city slickers probably left our previous high-octane lives for a slow dripped brew in Kunming, especially if strolling past old street.
The Starbucks Reserve Roastery will soon open at the newly renovated Zhengyi Fang branch (facing Renmin Zhong Rd.), which may feature rare, small-lot coffees from around the world.
For coffee connoisseurs who seek fully immersive coffee wonderlands, you may have heard of the world largest Starbucks that opened in Shanghai. That megastore is also one of the Starbucks Reserve Roastery & Tasting Room chains, which target more upscale & sophisticated customers.
Starbucks Reserve Roastery in their own words:
"It is a place where you can experience coffee from the unroasted bean to your cup of coffee. You can watch it being roasted. You'll see the burlap sacks it comes in. You can watch it being loaded into the green coffee loading pit. You can buy it scooped at the coffee scoop bar. You can experience your coffee as a pour over, Siphon brewed, Clover-brewed, a shot of espresso, espresso beverages, and more."
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Weekend in Dali: A Chinese perspective
发布者I've presented you the blue pill... now for the red pill, deeper down the rabbit hole we go:
Most landlords of guesthouse properties consist of local Dali residents, who've rented out their sought after lakeside locations to tenants all across China. From Sichuan to Dongbei, these guesthouse tenants transmigrated to Dali, boldly investing in infrastructural renovations that transformed the outlook of the town... synergizing modern eclectic flair with traditional, architectural nuances of the Bai ethnic minority... en route to a richer tapestry of colors.
Like the soul searchers drifting from breakup, free-spirited artists/poets/musicians, and couples escaping the bustling cities in search of a romantic, rustic getaway... out-of-town entrepreneurs and sightseers alike have congregated here in collective solitude to form a vibrant community of guesthouses/eateries/bars/shops enveloping the lake. This rendezvous melting pot of domiciled voyagers in addition to the picturesque mountain lake backdrop, have fused the mystique and the word-of-mouth draw of Dali.
Over the years, local Dali landlords have notoriously increased rent prices manifolds, reaping the rewards of the bygone tourist boom. There are numerous accounts in the Chinese grapevine of tenants selling off everything back home in order to start their new life as Dali guesthouse owners. Many do so by taking out high interest bank loans to absorb the high rents and refurbish/operation costs... only to be suspended indefinitely by the new environmental protection mandate before breaking even, let alone turning a profit.
For the past year, hospitality/dining related activities within 100-200 meters of Erhai Lake were ordered to cease. Without customers nor steady income, many owners unwillingly abandoned their Dali dream to return home, sunk costs notwithstanding. The laketown once blooming with life has since shriveled into a barren, quasi-ghost town. The bleak contrast from its flourishing heydays has turned off many would be vacationers.
Dali locals with fingers on the pulse have griped on WeChat Circles/Weibo feeds that shutdowns have drastically reduced tourism. Citywide revenues along the entire vertical & horizontal supply chain have seen much better days. From local fishermen & farmers... to Dali women & men that rely on wages in housekeeping, laundry, dish-washing, serving, cooking, transport/delivery, construction, etc.... to aforementioned "waidi" owners of these discontinued establishments & services that once put the local workforce on payroll.
One notable complaint on social media was a local granny who as a living does street-side hair braiding for female tourists. She complained about not landing one single business for an entire month.
Her distraught voice resonate the sentiments of EV renters, street vendors, mom & pop shops, mid-size stores, restaurants, and bars in Dali's Old Town where closures aren't even enforced, yet all indirectly hit hard by the decline in tourism... don't get me wrong,
I'm all for protecting the ecology of Erhai Lake, but it definitely comes with social ramifications. The recovery will take some time.
Starbucks' thirst for Yunnan coffee growing
发布者From the outside, the new store looks like a bar.
Starbucks' thirst for Yunnan coffee growing
发布者Right, but most of us city slickers probably left our previous high-octane lives for a slow dripped brew in Kunming, especially if strolling past old street.
Starbucks' thirst for Yunnan coffee growing
发布者The upcoming Zhengyi Fang branch may be a Starbucks Reserve store in lieu of the full-scale roastery version.
Starbucks' thirst for Yunnan coffee growing
发布者Yunnan is featured on the Starbucks Reserve website:
www.starbucksreserve.com/origin-yunnan
The Starbucks Reserve Roastery will soon open at the newly renovated Zhengyi Fang branch (facing Renmin Zhong Rd.), which may feature rare, small-lot coffees from around the world.
For coffee connoisseurs who seek fully immersive coffee wonderlands, you may have heard of the world largest Starbucks that opened in Shanghai. That megastore is also one of the Starbucks Reserve Roastery & Tasting Room chains, which target more upscale & sophisticated customers.
Starbucks Reserve Roastery in their own words:
"It is a place where you can experience coffee from the unroasted bean to your cup of coffee. You can watch it being roasted. You'll see the burlap sacks it comes in. You can watch it being loaded into the green coffee loading pit. You can buy it scooped at the coffee scoop bar. You can experience your coffee as a pour over, Siphon brewed, Clover-brewed, a shot of espresso, espresso beverages, and more."