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What is bad about Kunming and Yunnan?

AlexKMG (2387 posts) • 0

Winter sucks here. It sucks worse elsewhere in China. Since you'll be retired and not need to work, buy a winter home in Jinhong too.

If you or your wife do need to work to support yourselves, opportunities to ply any trade besides teaching English is minimal in Kunming.

If your hotel dream is based in old town Dali or Lijiang, be prepared to amass $$$$$$$$$rmb.

Ouyang (243 posts) • 0

It's actually not the foreigners who are most vocal about the smoking and drinking problem. It's usually the wife and kids who have to put up with it at meetings, or in the office at school/work/hospital.

TICexpats (207 posts) • 0

@ Ouyang, that's not true and and you know it if you live here.

But I guess your doing the Laowai anti smoking and drinking rant while trying to pass it off as the locals, nice try though.

Ouyang (243 posts) • 0

I've lived here for 6 years, and I'm married. The number two complaint from kids when I ask what they don't like is smoking; number one being no free time. Ask them about the police, and they say the police are rude. Ask them about the military, and they say they always drink and smoke everywhere....

Ask men and roughly 30% will talk about smoking, but they usually say there's nothing that can be done. Ask woman and it ranges from about 90%(mostly older woman) to about 50% being younger woman. But they will all complain about it sooner or later when you know them long enough.

The difference being in China is that people usually don't complain openly about things. They will only complain after you've known them for a while.

And I'm not talking about causal smoking or drinking. I'm talking about the ass hats who light up at work, or in the elevator constantly. Same goes for drinking. Nobody minds if their husband or father has one or two drinks, but it's the meetings/celebrations where they always have to get plastered.

bucko (695 posts) • 0

@geosax- I have been here 6 .5 years as well. I think you summed it up accurately. Kunming is basically an overgrown farmer town. The contrast really stands out if you have lived somewhere else in China.
I took a year off here and lived in Xiamen. I returned here about 6 months ago now. What a difference! Night and day to compare Xiamen to Kunming. If I didn't already own property in Kunming, I would move in a heartbeat to Xiamen.

I give Kunming at least another 10 years before it drags itself into the real world. Granted there are much worse places to be than Kunming, but there is a huge amount of room for improvement here.

Joeyzzz (1 post) • -3
Comment hidden by user downvote Click to expand

If I move to Kunming with my wife from there, I don't speak Chinese. I can sing opera and I heard I can teach English.

Is that another fairy tale too like the movies?

Ishmael (462 posts) • 0

If you're qualified and you get a legit job teaching then you can teach English. Apply to the numerous English-language schools, and/or to universities, they should be able to arrange a visa that will let you teach.
If you're going to live here you should learn Chinese - some at least, but the more the better. Of course you'll never finish, but that's true of any language.
I have no ideas about teaching opera.
None of this is a fairly tale or is something bad about Kunming.

cloudtrapezer (756 posts) • -1

@Ouyang I don't think the police here are rude. More like invisible. No doubt you don't want to get on the wrong side of them but cops in the UK are far more in your face. And I'm not even going to start on US cops.

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