Hi there,
I moved to Kunming recently (originally from The Netherlands), and would like to get to know other foreigners/expats living here as well.
Is there an existing community already?
Would love to hear.
Thank you!
Lucia
As far as I know, the only other foreigner living here is me.
Yeah, and Nappy stays at home all the time because of being stared at.
He is the China/Chinese hating, burger eating, angry, bitter, obsessed foreigner/expat living here.
Gosh, you came to China why would you want to hang with foreigner/expat people anyway?
Miss you Matt.
Haha.... alright, thanks a lot for helping me out.
Hi Lucia, I'm from Belgium (French speaking side). Will be moving there next month, perhaps we could hang out?
The Netherlands;
There is a Little Holland bar right next to the Moondog.
Lucia, there is more than one expat community, if they are indeed communities. One hangs out at Salvador's frequently - mostly Europeans and North Americans, and go to various bars and restaurants run (mostly) by other North Americans and Europeans; another are largely Protestant Christians (largely, perhaps mostly, North Americans), who can be easily-enough met through the Wicker Basket restaurants or at their English-language church services. There are also Koreans, Japanese, some Africans, Thai and Vietnamese and Lao students and others. Within the universities there are groups of students who largely hang out with each other, but the North Americans and Europeans among them also drift to and from Salvador's. And then there are (largely) Scandinavians, some with toned-down Protestant Christian motivations (not heavy-handed) around Nordica, a performance space & art gallery affair that has been here about 20 years.
Ages among the Europeans/North Americans vary from 20-something to people in their 70s, with very little age discrimination. More foreign males than females, and more & more married couples (often foreign man/Chinese woman), and more & more foreign (mostly Europeans & Americans) people with small businesses. Around the Kunming International School, a Protestant private school, there are quite a few teenagers.
Somebody who knows of other coteries of foreigners should add to this.
There are sprinklings of most nationalities in generally three or four main locations. The majority are teachers, students, married and/or retired. Business persons are fewer many of these are restaurant, bar and school operators. Fewer yet are employees of multi-nationals for profit and non profits. Religious areas populations are mostly Christians I think Protestant and Catholic of various denominations. A growing Buddhist community again of various sects is growing. Jewish is small. Islam is larger. The Netherlands has a good number of companies and folks with a annual Queens day or now Kings day. There are about 900 regular North American residents. I know Canadians, Filipinos, Bangladeshi, Thai, Myanmar, Australian, Americans from Taiwan, Singapore, Indian, Russian Ukrainian, Serbian, French, Belgian, German, Italian, African, Brazilian, Spanish and more.
pretty good summary from Alien. Lucia, as you may have been able to guess by the mere existence of this website (most Chinese cities don't have a website like this), there are thousands of foreign immigrants & students here, including most people who write on this forum. Kunming isn't as international as the tier 1 cities (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou), but it is perhaps nearly as international as some of the tier 2 cities (Hangzhou, Chengdu, Nanjing, etc). Kunming is a tier 3 city that has grown from being a quite small backwater provincial capital to being a reasonably big city of about 6.8million in the space of 20 years. It has a lot more foreigners than the average tier 3 Chinese city.
