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Forums > Living in Kunming > What to bring to Kunming?

The medicines you mentioned you can get here easily, but bring prescription meds, naturally. You only need academic transcripts if you want a job or to teach. Any photocopies can be made here, even of whole books. Coffee, tea all available locally. Things to read and cookies available here. Bottled water everywhere, as well as easily-boiled tap water. Security wires/ computer locks available. Kindle, available here, is not a bad idea. Insulating self from the madness somewhat negates the point of coming in the first place.

Vegemite, marmite hard to find - also large shoes, clothes.

This is not the edge of the world.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > New visa/immigration regulations July 1, 2013

Does this mean the multiple-entry F visa I presently have, which requires me to leave the country every couple of months but should be good for quite awhile yet, is going to go up in smoke on July 1? What happens the next time I leave the country and then try to come back on this visa?

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Mike

There's a lot of garbage in the world.

But we were his friends and he was our friend.

As far as I'm concerned, that's all you get.

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And it should be obvious that there are other ways, practiced in other countries, to swamp public opinion - ways that do not permit what I've referred to as 'free speech' above - one might hmm think of China in this way. Oddly enough, in some such places people are smarter about reading between the lines in the press, and in what people say, than they are in places where a level playing field is imagined. But I still prefer the formal guarantees.
Like I said, propaganda exists in many forms, but it needs power behind it to be effective, and that power can be in terms of law, wealth, or (as is the usual case) a combination of the two. I can't at the moment think of any place where this is not the case.

@Geezer: When PC is used in nasty ways then I am against the nasty ways it is being used. But others use the same sorts of tactics, and the left in the US is not large, unless you are referring to US liberals, who aren't exactly a huge majority either.
Anyway, the problem with free speech in the US and many other places is not that speech is really restricted in any stringent terms, but that the mass of the media is controlled by huge corporate interests with fingers in many pies, dominated by advertising revenues, etc., and swamps public opinion with its points of view. Check out who owns major media outlets, and how articles are presented, buried, ignored or slanted by them. Many seem to think that papers such as the New York Times are somehow 'left', when in fact they generally merely present the views and promote the attitudes of sections of the owning class.
So when I speak of freedom of speech (and of the press), I don't by any means mean that it's all somehow open on a level playing field - I simply mean that there are plenty of formal, legal guarantees that say you can pretty much say what you want, even if you're not rich enough to be heard by many. This is indeed worth something, and it's important to make the most of it, no matter what your opinions, even though money and power weigh a hell of a lot more than your voice.
Yeah, as I've said, Yang seems naive to me too.

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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.

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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.

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Really good pizza and steaks. The wine machine fuddles me when I'm a bit fuddled, & seems unnecessary. Good folks on both sides of the bar.