I had a negotiation on pay. They made a low offer. After pingponging we settled on a figure 25% higher than the original.
The day before I was due to start, I was told they would only pay the original. I said goodbye and did not start at YunDa.
Verbal agreements are worthless, there are no 'gentlemen's agreements'. Contracts are pretty worthless as well, you can't get a case to court. If you do you buy a verdict, or they side with their own.

The scientific community is a large body of people, as you well know.
Saying that scientists lie is incomplete and produces a false picture, bad science. It is a bit like saying that teachers are pedos or RC priests are kiddy ****ers. Which implies that all of them are. In fact it is only a small number. There is bias and misrepresentation in some corners. I have no doubt that even Kellog boys produce some very valuable work.

I am a liar, last night I told my wife I had two beers. Does that make everything I say suspect?

No one can look at the whole picture, it is too complex. A PhD studies one tiny part of the picture that no-one else has looked at before and becomes literally the world's expert on one tiny aspect of something bigger.

There will always be bias WE are ALL biased. All studies are biased, the kind of people who put up evidence of their life style being better (unintentionally) seek and find research that supports their point, bias.

You can do research and show me the normal structure of a grain of sand. I will go to the sand pile and I doubt if I will find one exactly the same.

So you say a lot of science is wrong. Disagree. Science is incomplete. To get the whole picture of the worlds environment, you would have to do a detailed survey of the earth every square KM, sqm, cm, mm?? You would have to test and blind test every combination of factors, man made and natural. Every genotype of all species. I am being silly now, but showing that there are limits.

The scientific community is not lying, just becuase it does not fit in with my world view. My thinking is biased, my perceptions cannot be the absolute truth. Just my truth. If I believe in either God, Buddha, creation, the Flying Spagetti Monster, the Earth is flat, guvermint consipracies, aliens or Russell's teapot, those are my personal truths. If science does not agree with my truth I can reject it, or change my world view.

Pastafarians of the world unite.

You have just summed up Chinese culture of the under 60s. No jest. But this is low culture. Yunnan high culture?

You get chinese art with a western bias, but western music sung in chinese. Hip hop is really big here (sad).

Most fusion cooking here is god awful. Go to a big 5 star hotel and you can see them serve ch. food served in the w. restaurants. There are good w. and chain jap. kor. restaurants (kobe beef, etc.) but not fusion. The only good fusion cooking I have seen has been in Shanghai and Beijing. It will come to yunnan, but it will be a long time coming.
When it comes to food most ch. I meet are devoutly loyal to ch. food. Especially local cuisine. They see everything else as third rate. There are some exceptions among the young, but they are exceptions.

Malware/virus? GFW? Being watched?