Forums > Living in Kunming > Salary info for prospective teachers No two people have every met who didn't influence each others' culture - there are no blacks & whites in this argument.
@somebody: If 2 people can't eat for less than RMB170 in a Chinese restaurant then they're choosing the wrong restaurant or more expensive dishes than they need. I'm not saying you shouldn't do so, but it's certainly easier to get a reasonable meal much cheaper in an ordinary Chinese restaurant than it is in, say, the US.
@laotou: personal amazement - how can you dislike Mexican beer? But hey, your choice - I like Tecate.
On the other hand, I'm not sure it's worth all the transport pollution to bring every minor luxury, including many tourists, halfway around the world.
Forums > Living in Kunming > Idea about getting Taxi services better @tuna, if you're willing to put all that effort into it it could become worthwhile, although personally I find it way too much about way too little. And it should not become a substitute for foreigners' learning how to get a cab and deal with the fare, which is really not all that complicated, the proof being that so many of us, as well as, apparently, almost all Chinese who take cabs, can do so with little or any trouble (yeah, that's right, once in a while some minor bs may pop up, but it's pretty rare for most of us, Chinese and non-Chinese alike). I'm sure there are cabbies who take advantage of foreigners who don't seem to know what they're doing, but you can't go on living here, or anywhere, and not know what you're doing in terms of local practices. Becoming functional in the language is obviously the first step, but not necessarily the last - there is no 'last'.
Forums > Living in Kunming > Monthly expenses in Kunming I probably spend about RMB4000 a month, all included. Largely this has to do with drinking at foreign-run places and eating out, either at foreign-run places or, usually, at nearby local ones, which are quite cheap. Cooking is my big laziness, if I cooked more at home I could cut it way down. In short, it's easy to live cheaply, and the luxuries I allow myself that are listed above are simply because I can afford them. I could do without them in a minute, and have lived without them in the past.
OK, add a certain amount for land travel out of China several times a year for visa purposes.
Forums > Living in Kunming > Cultural Colonialism Everything we do, Chinese or nonChinese, adds to the development of a generalized global culture, which has and will continue to have local variety. There are no barriers around Chinese culture. Chinese culture has changed more in the past 100 years than the cultures of western Europe or North America. Concentrated wealth and power, and the necessity of ordinary people to adapt to it (but never completely, there is always resistance) drive cultural change.
None of which means it's a good idea for foreigners in China to whine or demand that everything fit their ideas of how they should be able to live, or to condemn huge mythical entities (e.g., 'China'), as well as individual Chinese people, for not conforming to their wishes. Getting hyped up about every petty cultural detail that annoys you is a waste of time, especially if you assume that you understand it all, and/or consciously try not to. Although to come to such understanding is partly an inetellectual process, it is much more one of entering the culture as you would a swimming pool - one doesn't learn to swim by merely theorizing and watching from poolside. And no, you don't have to adopt everything, just don't be a pain in the ass to the other swimmers.
Forums > Living in Kunming > Salary info for prospective teachers @mmkunming: respectfully disagree about 'native culture' - ALL cultures are, and always have been, influenced by other cultures, and history doesn't always prove that the influences are always negative. Also with the idea that 'China was doing just fine...' - maybe some vision of 'China' throughout history may indicate this, but the point is not whether empires or nations are 'doing fine', but whether the people were - and to judge by Chinese history, with its numerous revolts and catastrophes. Together these 2 factors mean that China has always been changing, driven by dissatisfactions of its population, like everyplace else - in spite of which fact I think we can consider that the specifically Chinese cultural process manages to pull through - e.g., 'native culture' is not quite so fragile.
What's happening now is that the whole world is increasingly changing, not necessarily for the better, and more and more obviously so. National cultures are not eternal. Thing is not to guarantee the continuation of the past, but to guarantee the future....
Oh yeah - this forum is supposed to be about teachers' salaries...
Counting down Kunming's Top Ten Smells
发布者Don't worry about it.
Counting down Kunming's Top Ten Smells
发布者Yeah, well, it's perhaps useful to tourists and very new arrivals.
Counting down Kunming's Top Ten Smells
发布者Wet markets, smells - yeah, but not all bad. Cf. sterile supermarkets.
Counting down Kunming's Top Ten Smells
发布者Nice article, Ginger, and on a subject that one might not think about until, once one does, it's obvious that it should be explored.
The point about foreigners particularly applies, as you indicate, to people from milk-product-using 'western' countries and, as you indicate, it is one picked up in some southeast Asian countries as well - but foreigners from other areas will be pegged also (e.g., South Asians who use many different 'curry' spices, etc., that are not used so much in China).
And then there is the widespread smell of tobacco, noticeable primarily by those foreigners who don't use it. Baijiu has a particular smell also.
Food and Drug Administration issues southern China alcohol alert
发布者Those responsible should have their faces publicly rubbed in the dirt.