User profile: voltaire

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Video production rates

Filming and editing are two separate things.

FWIW I have had a few short (~3-5 minute) videos (already filmed) professionally edited recently for very reasonable rates... executed within a day, and under 800/minute. Very happy with output quality and service.

I can give you the editor I used's contact details if you wish, send me a PM.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Chinese Cities of Opportunity 2017

Shenzhen is awesome! So much going on. Everyone is from somewhere else so you don't get that 'lao difang ren' mentality with swearing, arguing on the street, spitting, day-long-mahjong, etc. It's a very young city. The sort of place you can literally make anything happen. A true city of opportunity.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Street Stabbings

No coverage so I thought to share. Yesterday morning on Hongshan Nan Lu near the intersection of Hongshan Dong Lu a man with a mental illness took an axe to the general public. Multiple people were seriously injured. Police turned up but were unable to constrain the attacker, and ultimately shot him.

Apparently the attacker was a Chinese man in his mid 30s.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Toastmaster club in Kunming

I read an article recently, recalled some TM threads here and looked them up.

It seems sad that as an international organization supposedly fostering effective and professional communication they are unable to provide a current, geographically delineated list of clubs and events.

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Forums > Travel Yunnan > Yunnan Covered Bridges--Seeking Old Photographs

Hi Ronald,

You should get in touch with Jim Goodman, he has pictures of a lot of these that he took himself from the 1990s through early 2000s.

As far as older ones go, he has published a number of books on the province some of which almost certainly include older images which he could provide. (Likely including the one near Baoshan.)

I also have a collection of old Yunnan photographs and other imagery and could provide you with a French era (~1900) black and white of one in southeast Yunnan.

Jim's website which has his email: blackeagleflights.blogspot.hk/

Or just email me and I'll put you in touch with him. My email: walter at the domain name of the website pratyeka.org/

I have a few images of covered bridges from ~2001 onward, but also photographs of some old photos. Unfortunately they would take me a long time to dig up and I don't have time right now. I would suggest contacting the various prefectural museums for additional assistance (eg. Dali, Baoshan, Kunming, Jianshui, Mengzi/Honghe). There is also a private museum in Tengchong which would likely be of use.

A copy of the finished book would be appreciated.

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Xiefei: Of course, we will probably never know the real reasons, but the result is the same. Absolute depoliticization of the site, the movement of anything still suggestive of a pluralistic history out of town to what amounts to the middle of nowhere, and the vaguaries of apologetics resulting from a lack of transparency in government decision making. What next? Personally, I expect to see a coffee shop in former exhibition space.

I believe it's hard to interpret mtDNA evidence without being an expert... there are a lot of Chinese mtDNA studies in the Yungui Plateau area.

Other studies I have read show things like the pre-modern peoples of the Yangtse delta (Shanghai) region came up the coast from Southeast Asia on boats.

Then of course we have the development of long-distance, multihull sailing vessels in the islands (some even attribute this to prehistoric Vietnam), which resulted in undeniable migration of one linguistic group (Austronesians) as far west as Madagascar and as far east as Easter Island and (by a recent article published in the prestigious journal Nature) South America ... all this allegedly from Taiwan.

See en.wikipedia.org/[...] for some background there... "some Amazonian Native Americans descend partly from a Native American founding population that carried ancestry more closely related to indigenous Australians, New Guineans and Andaman Islanders than to any present-day Eurasians or Native Americans."

The main point is, there's evidence of all sorts of things, but a coherent picture is far from agreed upon, and the picture is changing.

Perhaps it would be fair to say that what we really know about ancient Yunnan, other than its extreme diversity and ancient peopling since neolithic times, is that it was a melting pot important in the initial dispersal (by both prehistoric migration and trade) of critical technologies such as intensive rice agriculture across a broad swathe of Asia, and that this importance is not widely known in either academia or public consciousness, despite the geographic/topographic sense this makes, the continued discoveries of ancient settled agricultural sites (Jianchuan), etc.

We are only beginning to learn about our own ignorance! :)

If I recall correctly I read the sign at the entrance to the old museum site on Dongfeng Dong Lu a few months ago, which suggested that the powers that be were in the process of "depoliticizing" the contents of building by turning in to some kind of modern fine art gallery, no doubt with a carefully audited inventory to raise no pesky questions about historical independence and ethnic identity.

I was the friend that dragged Jordan down. It's not a bad museum as far as space goes, but the exhibitions are pretty lame. The lack of translations is grating, as is the wholesale abortion of any attempt at a timeline of Yunnanese history. It's as if the curators were afraid of political backlash for actually laying out history in an honest fashion.

The Nanzhao stuff is pretty detailed, and there is a good selection of bronze age items - far more than the original provincial museum in town.

Overall it's worth a look if you're in to history, but a pain to get to.

One is drawn to question whether the remote location is intended solely to dissuade visitors or was purely a victim of political wranglings.

Good effort by some of the involved, I would say, but an overall poor showing given the investment and background, all said.

Huge areas of interest such as the bronze-age discoveries at Jianchuan, the neolithic paintings in Lincang and the historic connections with Vietnam's northern region are largely ignored. As are any links to Hindu religion in the Nanzhao period (evidenced in carvings at Shibaoshan), the historical seige of Kunming by Tai troops from what is now modern Shan state, Burma, the amazing influence of Zheng He, the history of boats on the central Yunnanese lakes, the 'qi' tiles of Baoshan, and so on...

Overall, poor show.

I wish Yunnan would get a clue about how to market their amazing history and drop the political wankery.

Reviews

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@nailer is being unfairly dismissed: they are certainly fallible. At one point they were well managed and the only game in town, and their outdoor bar had an interesting social vibe. Recently, none of these is the case (was given a bad bill to the tune of ~300% - no managers present and a subsequent complaint resulted in a less than ideal outcome, many more places are now open, and the outdoor bar is closed). Unless you are specifically seeking faux-Americana (often far better examples elsewhere) or two degrees removed faux-Mexicana, there's little reason to go there. How come French Cafe can serve a great sandwich for 24 but Sals requires 50 for a pretend-exoticized nibble? Certainly the business will continue, but the hey-dey is clearly gone. Romaniticizing the past aint gonna help. E-waste recycling by shipping (non carbon neutral) junk across the country? Puh-lease. Garbage processing people here recycle anyway! I applaud the ethical stance of one of the managers, but the place has frankly lost its mojo.

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Hands down the best draft craft beer in Kunming. On top of that, very reasonable prices for food and other drinks (especially wine).

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Called the number provided on a Friday at 2:15PM while a 10% discount was advertised "on Friday and Saturday" (listed in GoKunming specials).

A Chinese person answered the 'English' phone number in Mandarin then explained in broken English that you need to order 3 hours in advance. (Subtext: As their business is so slow)

Grumble. False advertising. Waste of time. Seems 100% Chinese run. Probably bad pizza.

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The listing here is wrong! Teresa's are not defunct, they are just back to being one store instead of two stores on Wenlinjie now! They are still in business, still answer on this phone number, and are still delivering! Points for consistency, it's been years! As of right now, it's 68 for the more toppings vegetarian at the largest size. They will do thin or thick crust. Yes, it's not to everyone's taste, but I always used to find adding dried chilli powder and some extra salt brought it up to tasty. Might go for a dash of Sichuan pepper oil to spice it up this time around. (You know you've been in China too long when...)

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I also had a bad experience here recently.

Honestly, I wish them the best of luck, but I do think the staff are poorly managed and the owners have the wrong attitude and a clear lack of experience in service-oriented business. While the pizza is OK, everything else I have tried (including overnight stay) can be had cheaper and better elsewhere, and the pizza at Roccos is better in my opinion. The service has always fluctuated between acceptable to don't care.

Since they don't have their situation resolved yet, and it has been a few years, I have made the decision not to go there anymore or send anyone else. It's just not worth the hassle, given the crappy location (masked as private or lost). Better pizza with more quiet and privacy on Roccos' terraces.