User profile: atwillden

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Life in Kunming

Unless you're specialized in a particular industry that is in demand or independently wealthy, you will take a pretty large pay cut. Similarly, private school can be a bit tricky if you are not planning on sending the kids to public Chinese school. That said, if you make enough, quality of life can be quite nice. Pollution levels are about on par on most areas that people live, but transit is not nearly as convenient as it is in HK, so you may find yourself less mobile.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Healthcare for foreigners

If you do require something specialized that China is not equipped to deal with (orthopedic surgery is a major one, or ongoing care for say cancer) you may want to buy additional insurance that includes medical evacuation to the nearest certified facilities (HK & Bangkok, or sometimes Aus/Europe). This is probably not necessary for 90% of people, but for some its nice to have. Packages like this run typically 7-15,000 RMB a year, and cover something in the range of 2 Million RMB in medical expenses per year.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > How does one meet nice Chinese women?

Local and traditional are different. A large bit of local Kunming culture is not local at all, its quite metropolitan in its outlook—ie make loads of cash, travel the world, buy the latest iPhone, immigrate, etc. Traditional is closer to (I think) what MM is describing, such as eating local foods, appreciating the indigenous culture (which is different from local culture, but that's just semantics), live as many average people do and not in a western-style compound (even though the 'traditional' apartments in Kunming are soviet-bloc housing and ergo western), etc.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > How does one meet nice Chinese women?

If the guy wants to come to Kunming, make a nice wad of cash, meet girls and get laid, then he probably doesn't want to live in the local culture by any stretch of the imagination. No comment on the merit of the goal, just saying it doesn't gel well with trad Chinese culture.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Sony stores /PS4 ?

Might want to grab a few games there as well... hard to get non-pirated /non-edited versions of certain titles in mainland, even for older consoles.

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More direct flights (full ones) that do not require excessive connections as well as flights on smaller aircraft that do not go as fast or so high into the troposphere are actually net advantages to helping combat the negative influences of air travel. And yes, the current form is arguably unsustainable, but advances in aircraft design, fuel efficiency and better logistics are easing the burden somewhat. Telling people not to fly is probably pretty ineffective... most of us got here that way. But telling people to fly smarter and more sustainably might work.

Actually there are quite a few scientists in Kunming who only study the effects of TCM. Baiyao (and most TCM) have active ingredients that actually cause the effect, and a few fillers that have been added over the years that are either inert (as far as tests show) or merely serve some physical function (taste, binding, etc.). Not sure about Baiyao itself, but quite a few other products the company makes are well established and clinically showen to be quite effective complements to typical western-style medical treatments. Some of that may be due to the placebo effect, but testing the chemical compounds on cell-lines has shown some positive effects as well.

Actually, don't get a horse. Chicago, NYC and London of the 19th centuries were cess pools of disease caused by too many horses in an urban atmosphere. The old Brownstones of NYC had raised porches so that there were a few feet of distance from the road level to give a place for the manure to go... oh, and if a horse died, it stayed in the street till it decayed and could be moved. Add to that rampant disease and insanely high amounts of methane (which isn't great for the atmos either....), and well... maybe don't get a horse.

totally irrelevant, but @mmkunmingteacher, actually Salt Lake City proper is pretty awesome. Definitely more of a cultural vibe than you get in some western cities if you know where to look. ; )

I think the author is more making reference to the fact that before the new airport was built, the area up North was well known to have horrendous fog problems but they decided to put the airport in there regardless. The massive delays last year were just the first taste of the kind of problems you get when you put a multi-billion dollar installation in a perhaps less than suitable location (especially as Yunnan Gov. would like to make Kunming the air hub of Southeast Asia).

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Slight unrated update here... I was in again and spoke to Sandra's partner, and he agreed there could be a greater selection of items (especially meat/cheese-wise) so he mentioned that several new products would be coming out shortly. So, not to say that dudeson's review was inaccurate (given his description, it's an entirely fair assessment from his experience), but mostly just to report that there should be some things worth going back to try.