There are good English teachers and not-so-good ones here, but how is it that "background criminal checks" and your simple statement that some "should not be trusted with being in the company of your children" (what makes you say this? Has there been some upswing in English teachers with criminal backgrounds messing with young kids?) add up to you being a good one? Please point out a single incident of this great danger you are warning Kunming parents to avoid.
@Alex, I rarely eat at high-end Chinese restaurants and I've eaten at continental buffets maybe 3 times total in Kunming, although I eat at western restaurants maybe twice a week (very often Salvador's). I've been here more than 3 years, and I usually eat at little local places, but it's not a matter of having figured out 'which ones' don't make me sick, it's just that I know well that most places do not make me sick - and yes of course I would stay away from those few that have, although I can only think of one in my neighborhood where this has happened. Last night I ate a really big meal with friends at a small open-front place on the outskirts of town none of us had ever been to before (6 dishes, large portions (huiguoro (very fatty), another pork dish (a bit spicey), a red bean dish, a corn-&-peas dish, a doufu dish and something else, with rice); all quite good, with 4 beers, for 3 of us - 103 kuai total for the 3 of us (in a student area), and there was more food than we could finish). The place was nearly full, and everybody looked pretty healthy. I feel fine today.
With the exception of people whose stomachs either can't adjust (perhaps you can't handle spices) or who haven't made an effort to get used to local food, the chances of getting sick eating at ordinary restaurants is very low - do you think I'd be intentionally making myself sick by doing so, for 10 years?
@Allpage: I think you've said it, although I don't think it takes, or has to take, 3 years to get used to local food.
@Tiger: I don't think bars often use tap water, but I haven't looked into it. Virtually all people in China boil the water they drink as a matter of course, and have been doing so for many centuries, and perhaps longer.
@Haali: It's Jon and I who have ordinary stomachs - apparently you are the one with the serious stomach problems (evidence: most people in Yunnan are not beset by such problems as you describe, or if so only very rarely). If this happens to you often then yes, you probably do have a serious medical problem and should see to it.
My feelings about Kunming are pretty much the opposite of Lightnin's, but I'll only add that I find the altitude a plus - since I got fully used to it years ago, which took maybe a week on the outside, I've felt better just walking around here than I ever did downhill there in the lowlands, and I don't think most foreigners here are bothered by it either. But that's personal and bound to be different for different people.
I understand what Daithi means about following people around, which I also find annoying, although otherwise I don't find the place unfriendly, and to my knowledge it's absolutely the best place to buy English-language books in Yunnan. They also have some in French and, I think, Spanish. I don't know what the reading foreign public would do without the place - the guy who runs it actually knows books well, reads them and has intelligent opinions about them, unlike, apparently, most of those who run or work in foreign language bookstores in this part of China. He is also a contact for local foreign-language writers and translators, and had published or arranged publication (through a Hong Kong connection) for a number of books. His goal, though it is not unusual, is to make money, which he'll tell you up front.
Tell it to Steven Hawking. A person's physical stature does not limit his/her potential for work that does not rely on his/her physical stature (e.g., English teaching, as well as physics). The cultural attitude that those who are discriminated against because they do not fit the culturally desired norm should be outcast or should be provided for by special environments that can be sold as entertainment venues to those who will not deal with their own prejudices is a cultural attitude that perpetuates discrimination against all who are 'different'. The problem here, as elsewhere, is a matter of dehumanizing those who are 'different' - prejudicial culture that regiments anything that deviates from its standards, rather than dealing with the prejudice itself. Why not have a theme park within which 'foreigners', with all their funny habits, can be kept, so that they do not disturb the 'normality' of cultural prejudices? Actually, there could be many: one for 'black people', one for Tibetans, one for Japanese, one for gay people, one for Han Chinese people who have given up their 'traditional' clothing for 'western-style' clothing (e.g., the great majority of Chinese, over the past century or so) - in fact we could subdivide and subdivide until nothing was left but mutual nonrecognition. All these would help to maintain the narrow identities of 'normality' that can be relied upon to advance support the cultural attitudes that promote the continuing inability of people to recognize each other as human, and to celebrate and accept their differences - not as entertainment items, no matter how 'cute', but as full human beings. How different is all this from apartheid?
This effort to maintain prejudice can, of course, be profitable to those who invest in it, and convenient for social engineers and political elites who want to maintain an elite power status by reliance on it.
The place is an insult to our common humanity and a spotlight on cultural attitudes of exclusion. Those who find that they enjoy such displays should take a good look at the nature of the culture that has formed them so narrowly. Cultures change; cultures have always changed; cultures are presently changing and will continue to do so; there is nothing sacred about cultural attitudes. Our common humanity is an ongoing project, and those who imagine they are not part of such a project are simply contributing their own blindness to it, and limiting themselves in the process. It's not the 'dwarves' who are the problem, its the people who will not accept them as within the boundaries of 'us'.
Modern nationalism is a manipulative ideology to manage global capital, and nationalist blindness to actual human beings leads to the punishment of innocents. China is not a communist country. People who murder in Pakistan cannot be extradited to China to be judged for murders of people in Pakistan, even if they're Chinese.
Not quite what you'd call a jumping place, but not bad at all for rather standard US-type meals, not overly expensive, and with a really good salad bar that's cheap, or free with most dinner dishes after 5:30PM. You can get a bottle of beer or even wine if you really want to, but I've never seen anybody do it - maybe that's just to take out. Chinese Christian run, and they hire people with physical disadvantages, who are pleasant and helpful. Frequented by foreign (mostly North American) Christians and Chinese Christians - was started by a Canadian couple associated with Bless China (previously, Project Grace), who are no longer here, but no religious pressure or any of that. Steaks are nothing special, and I avoid the Korean dishes, which I've had a few times but which did not impress me.
As a shop and bakery, it's very good bread at reasonable prices, of various kinds (Y18 for a good multigrain loaf that certainly weighs well over a pound. Other stuff too, like granola and oatmeal that is local, as well as imported things, including American cornflakes and so forth, which some people seem to require.
Large portions, seriously so with the pizza, which is Brooklyn/American style, I guess. Convivial, conversational, good place to drink with good folks on both sides of the bar, especially after about 9PM.
China, US discuss human rights in Kunming
发布者I think what these governments are most interested in is not human rights, but how not to be accused of violating them.
Inside Kunming's 'dwarf empire'
发布者Tell it to Steven Hawking. A person's physical stature does not limit his/her potential for work that does not rely on his/her physical stature (e.g., English teaching, as well as physics). The cultural attitude that those who are discriminated against because they do not fit the culturally desired norm should be outcast or should be provided for by special environments that can be sold as entertainment venues to those who will not deal with their own prejudices is a cultural attitude that perpetuates discrimination against all who are 'different'. The problem here, as elsewhere, is a matter of dehumanizing those who are 'different' - prejudicial culture that regiments anything that deviates from its standards, rather than dealing with the prejudice itself. Why not have a theme park within which 'foreigners', with all their funny habits, can be kept, so that they do not disturb the 'normality' of cultural prejudices? Actually, there could be many: one for 'black people', one for Tibetans, one for Japanese, one for gay people, one for Han Chinese people who have given up their 'traditional' clothing for 'western-style' clothing (e.g., the great majority of Chinese, over the past century or so) - in fact we could subdivide and subdivide until nothing was left but mutual nonrecognition. All these would help to maintain the narrow identities of 'normality' that can be relied upon to advance support the cultural attitudes that promote the continuing inability of people to recognize each other as human, and to celebrate and accept their differences - not as entertainment items, no matter how 'cute', but as full human beings. How different is all this from apartheid?
This effort to maintain prejudice can, of course, be profitable to those who invest in it, and convenient for social engineers and political elites who want to maintain an elite power status by reliance on it.
The place is an insult to our common humanity and a spotlight on cultural attitudes of exclusion. Those who find that they enjoy such displays should take a good look at the nature of the culture that has formed them so narrowly. Cultures change; cultures have always changed; cultures are presently changing and will continue to do so; there is nothing sacred about cultural attitudes. Our common humanity is an ongoing project, and those who imagine they are not part of such a project are simply contributing their own blindness to it, and limiting themselves in the process. It's not the 'dwarves' who are the problem, its the people who will not accept them as within the boundaries of 'us'.
Around Town: Southwestern Associated University Museum
发布者See John Israel's EXCELLENT book on the history of the university:
Israel, John. Lianda: A Chinese University in War and Revolution. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998
Books about universities do not normally strike me as exciting, but this one is.
John has lived in Kunming for several months per year over the past 10 years or more.
Chinese climbers among those murdered in Pakistan
发布者Modern nationalism is a manipulative ideology to manage global capital, and nationalist blindness to actual human beings leads to the punishment of innocents. China is not a communist country. People who murder in Pakistan cannot be extradited to China to be judged for murders of people in Pakistan, even if they're Chinese.
Chinese climbers among those murdered in Pakistan
发布者Which regions are 'these regions'?