@Peter: "3-4 years ago you had whole society suddenly wake up to massive pollution, beijing skies black, urbanization had demolished all hometowns and cities full of zombies. On top of that one corruption scandal after another. One fake scandal after another. Food safety, vaccine safety and whatnot safety issues."
Hard to imagine this would be blamed on foreigners, and I don't remember that it was.
Well, I'm sorry you had to go so far before you could take a calm can of juice. As for your success/failure rate as a prophet, it has yet to affect anybody I know around here personally, and as for badshit down the road, there's a limit to just how much I'm going to get excited about it today. You get your nerve up, drop by sometime & I'll take you on a walk around my neighborhood. I don't know where on the planet you happen to be, but I hope it's safe. Best wishes.
Somehow the hypothetical Hump/Obama/punch nexus doesn't give me any new reason to worry about the balloon going up, and I feel free to enjoy my usual calm little 6PM glass of wine. Suggest you might do well to have one too, Peter.
The owner/managers of Salvador's are in touch with a school in Kunming that provides education for local kids whose hukou is outside of Kunming and so find it hard to get registered in ordinary schools. Their parents are largely migrants to the city from the countryside and get by with very menial jobs. I suggest you ask at Salvador's.
There is also a sort of charity kitchen affair that the manager/entrepreneur, who I think is American, who runs Lighthouse (essentially an English-language school), has raised money for - anyway, his contact is through the Lighthouse website (www.lighthouse-edu.com). Guy's name is Murphy.
I think that "volunteering", in the sense that you seem to mean it, is largely an American concept that has arisen over the past few decades and has spread somewhat to a few other countries. Organized programs of such are fine, with certificates and so forth, but if you are serious there are actually quite a lot of things that need to be done, with nobody to provide much of a salary, here and elsewhere; and there are a lot of things for which you can be paid quite well that shouldn't be done at all. In that sense, 'taking a year', or a decade or so, 'off' from Maggie's Farm after university graduation can be worth consideration too.
Social cooperation is also hard-wired into the individuals of an innately social species such as ourselves, without which the individuals of our species would not have survived to pass on any genes..Rouseau's 'noble savage' never existed, both he and Hobbes were wrong.
There are economic issues concerning education in China for very poor communities, which obviously need a bigger share of the economic pie than they are getting. Yet China's 'socialist market economy' is increasing the overall level of economic resources within China.
What's wrong with this picture?
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 hands out happy city awards, Kunming sad
发布者Social cooperation is also hard-wired into the individuals of an innately social species such as ourselves, without which the individuals of our species would not have survived to pass on any genes..Rouseau's 'noble savage' never existed, both he and Hobbes were wrong.
China hands out happy city awards, Kunming sad
发布者Subjective reports of happiness mean something, but I'm not sure what.
Kunming smells part II: The good, the bad and the ugly
发布者You get used to it all after awhile, as most of Kunming's 7 million inhabitants surely have.
Government sues parents to get kids back to school
发布者@nnoble: don't follow - who or what is rotting? I can think of various candidates, but I'm not sure which one you're talking about.
Government sues parents to get kids back to school
发布者There are economic issues concerning education in China for very poor communities, which obviously need a bigger share of the economic pie than they are getting. Yet China's 'socialist market economy' is increasing the overall level of economic resources within China.
What's wrong with this picture?