china has great points. culture, history, etc...
but overall
this country sucks

"China" means different things to different people. I think some posts here are meaning the country, some the people, some the government, some the culture/habits. To me they have wildly differing levels of love/hate. And, of course, there is good and bad in every population/culture. Do I lose points for not being strident?

test

Pretty interesting - even a relatively small expat population such as Kunming has a fairly diverse spectrum of expats.

colinflahive

Colin ...is that you????

Oh yeah, it's an incredible country and the people are simply the most urbane, charming, and honest that I've ever encountered.

Odd then that none of them seem able to flush away their shits in the public toilet. What is that all about?

colinflahive,

You are not a Chinese student....So take that post down...

The only reason why you and your buddies were able to set up and operate Salvador's was due to the fact that your father or your buddy's father was a member of a trade delegation to the Yunnan region a few years ago.

omgirl
I dunno about the women's restroom - but you're not supposed to dump in Salvadore's men's room.

Gaoxing,

Welcome back (at least on GoKunming Forum)! Are you still in Hong Kong? Hope you'll continue to enjoy HK and can be truly "gaoxing".

I lived in HK for a long while out of necessity and find that city so overrated in nearly every respect that it's a breath of fresh air to be Kunming. You, though very extreme with your views, are at least honest & very consistent. Honesty & consistency are rare "virtues" in today's society, any society, Asian or Western! Therefore, honesty & consistency are breaths of fresh air as well.

Personal habits aside, the first thing I've notice in Kunming is the friendliness of the local people vs. the "I am not sure, so don't ask me and get loss" attitude of the HK people. HK people may not superficially practice all of this thread's aforementioned "habits", but they do so mentally toward everyone who's not or perceived not to be native to HK. As a start, "have-an-ax-to grind" immigration agents at HK border crossings never smile and welcome any of the visitors. They are particularly nasty to their brethren from Mainland China often asking rude questions that they do not dare ask any holder of a Western country passport. China Immigration agents, in contrast, often welcome visitors with a smile.

Colin,

If you want to completely fool this Forum community that you are what you claimed to be, be consistent and start by try writing "Chinglish" instead of the fluent English in your posts or stop the "bulls - - - ". And if you were actually so rudely "fondled and searched" by US Immigration & Customs agents, you must be a very suspicious looking character, or potentially one of the reportedly 500,000 or so Chinese "wetbacks" in the USA. I always get a "Welcome home" greeting form the US Immigrations agent upon each home visit.

FYI, (As if you don't already know) the Chinese food in America are typically cooked by Chinese immigrants (who are not chefs by training or profession, some are even illegal immigrants just trying to make a living the only way they can) in restaurants typically owned by Chinese immigrants. BTW, I patronized "Sal- - - - - 's" once and believe it can use some improvements in many areas. The portions you serve at the restaurant certainly give credence to one of Gaoxing's complaints! I'd suggest you focus on improving the many aspects of your restaurant instead of turning a serious discussion into a game.

My apologies if I offended anyone. I thought that by signing in under my full name, it would be obvious I was just trying to inject some irony into the discourse. It was never my intent to "fool" anyone. My post was just a mosaic of points that I have heard from Chinese friends who have visited the States. There are complaints anyone could make about cultures unlike their own, and that is all that I was trying to point out.

On a side note, I'm pretty sure none of our fathers had ever been to China before us, or at least it was never brought to our attention. It sure would be nice to have contacts with the trade delegation though.