User profile: fixitwithahammer

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Am I really in a place that bad?

@stratocaster
It depends, the rent can be similar, depending on location and apartment style or state.

In the Kunming downtown area, a new building or apartment, in a good location and condition 3-5k is normal.

But since salaries in Kunming are lower than in Guangzhou, you could say Kunming is more expensive, especially if you compare the houses and conveniences.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Am I really in a place that bad?

Are you really in a place that bad?

No! But it's not that great either.

These city rankings, they do all over the globe and they don't always represent what we think personally but they are usually pretty accurate for what they stand for.

And I agree with the authors of the ranking.

Kunming, as nice as it is, is not a very good city for establishing businesses, families, nightlife, lifestyle, relaxation and so on.

Well compared with some of the other cities.
Kunming is nice but not exactly up to par with the bigger cities.

Kunming doesn't even have real parks, unless you want to go to Xishan or Chengong.

I have been to most of the cities mentioned in the article and I agree with most of it. I have friends living in many of these cities and we compare often.

Kunming is great if you are a student, just want to hang out for a while in a city with some conveniences, enjoy the weather, or just want to be a city-hippy for a while.

But in terms of professional career jobs, which seems to be the most important link to stay in Kunming for a longer period of time, or settle and start a family, -Kunming is a nightmare.

I know of maybe five major companies, hiring professional foreign experts and offering a good work and career environment.

About rent I have been back and forth in Kunming over the last 10 years and my Chinese wife or I have never got a lease under 6 month rent upfront payment.

Prices in Kunming are ridiculous compared to quality of life and standards in these cities mentioned in the ranking.

The same goes for food and dining.

Salaries have gone up for Chinese talents, thank god but for foreigners it's still 2001 in Kunming.

To summarize, the ranking article is accurate, sadly.

That said, Kunming is a great little town, by Chinese city standards to live in, but to catch up with the big winners, there is still a lot of room.

The weather and climate is great, the local food is nice.

A small expat community, people know each other.

Locals are very open to meet new people and strangers, which is nice.

But why does it bother you so much? You already live in Kunming, so you made a good decision, enjoy it, why do you care where others rank Kunming or think about it?

Your little gem stays hidden a little longer, isn't that great?

My family and I, we moved to Dali, because it's the new-old Kunming. And it's soooooooo much cheaper and even offers plenty of professional job opportunities. And you can do a lot of office work from your porch, watching the mountain or lake.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Trouble for Paid Gigs w/o Work Visa?

Yes, in Dali. A lot of my friends got in trouble in Dali. You need a special Visa as a performer. The PSB doesn't care if you have a work visa for another job.

So be careful. Most bar managers will not bother to use their connections to keep you out of trouble. Some even throw you right under the bus.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > What do you think about this video?

First it was a speech at a university, and these speeches at universities, museums or city halls always go a bit lofty.

I am sure there are things she isn't thrilled about in America, racism, gun violence, and others but she is the first Chinese student showing real gratitude, publicly, for what she received and the hospitality.

From what I know it's a good university, besides crazy nationalism I can't see a problem with her speech. It's a good and positive speech.

Yes vicar there are influences of human migration and conflicts influencing politics and opinions.

But these impacts are usually so little and turn out to be more positive in the long run.

Many countries have already stated and shown in numbers, that the refugee impact on state budget, crime rates, and educatoon system are msnagable.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > What do you think about this video?

@Alien
No I am not naive, bit I alsl don't believd in the post apocalyptic picture people paint of the US.
I throw my fun at the US and I am the last person to say things are perfect over there but still. The woman is right, there is more freedom of speech vs this place and AQI vs Kunming.

I am wandering when people get death penalty in China for criticizing Chinese food.

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Comments

@Dazzer
Could you give real examples, which would not just excuse lazy teachers. What you are trying to explain is still incorrect working in the classroom.

Helping a slow student takes merely seconds. If done well it takes almist none to no resources at all and students learn about community and human abilities.

It's something very important during these times. One would assume.

Not every horse is a race horse but a slow horse still can run fast.

What is it that eats up all the valuable teacher time helping a slow student?

You are just giving excuses for half assed teachers.

So if a kid has a hard time learning the abc, a teacher should give up rather than using a millisecond of brain capacity finding a new creative way to teach it. Like rapping the abc, etc?

I am sure that there was a subject in school that you didn't excell in, when you were a kid and a teacher took his time to help you through it.
So what are you talking about?
But you won't let others want to have that opportunity.

@Dazzer
Good kids don't need much help, especially not for any written test. What's the average oral language grading percentage for any of the above test? 20% -30%?

Let me get this straight, a student who is forced to join an English test/course and doesn't put in his 100% after 10hours of class a day, is a lazy?

What if your gf or wife forces you to learn the flute. Would you be all fire and flames for the class?

From what I remember IELTS pays handsomely, why don't you use any of the teaching strategies you learned in the course to teach IELTS.

So this 20% of horrible students which translates to six students at a class of thirty. If you can't motivate 6/30, then I would say it may be lack of motivation by the teacher. Students look at the teacher, if a teacher gives up, it is likely that students will too.

You say for them there is no hope even if you give all you have? Even though you get paid handsomely and your contract states exactly what you should do, you still complain?

I had lazy students as well, don't get me wrong but I always managed to get everyone to at least the motivation level to have very enjoyable classes for everyone.

Lazy students can be a pain but you. can turn them around.

I can't believe what I am hearing here.
80% of the resources? What resources? Time?

It very much sounds like a lazy teachers complaining. How is it possible that underachieving teachers complain about students being underachievers? Sounds very ironic to me.

If you are a professional teacher and you are that incompetent not being able to use the most basic of class layouts and pedagogy, it's just sad. But you shouldn't complain about the students. Maybe you should find better incentives, motivation or didactic to get your students to learn.

Most teachers in Finland, Sweden, Germany, France are pulling the 20% students easily through the grades, without one extra penny spend.

You can increase your students abilities by double digits, just by changing the seating order.

You can pull lesser achieving students by putting one or two excelling students with 2 mediocre and even more underachievers. Try it in your English classes here.

I was one of the 20%, and became a teacher because of all these jackass-soon-to-retire-teachers, focusing on telling you how bad you are because your suck at exams.

That said, every time I was able to get through my ADHD disadvantage, I was on of the top 5 students.

I had and have severe ADHD, which is on the autism spectrum. And was IQ tested 3 times, as kid as gifted.
I refuse to take Ritalin and other medz, because me and my parents understood, that if I need to function for others, then the system is messed up, not the students.

Most of the biggest influencers in the world, are school drop outs, or underachievers, because they understood that they don't need the system to make it big.

In central Europe agencies are popping up 'managing' Asperger and other autism spectrum "Dummies" as accountants and even ATC employees, because they never make mistakes.

Half of the artists worldwide have dyslexia, autism spectrum disorders, bipolar disorder, depression, -you name it.

I have been a teacher for 20 years, and I never had to leave one kid behind, because if you think out of the box and really care about the students, listen to what they feel and think,find their skill and interests and deeply care about the teaching mission, beyond pulling them through the next exam, you will be heavily rewarded and beyond that it isn't that hard. Just a little bit of experimenting, skills and logic with a little sprinkle of intuition and a huge load of care, and you will see the 20% can be easily moved into the top 80%

On a philosophical and sociology sphere, and as a society we have the duty to give everyone the same chances and leave nobody behind.

What if we don;t have the time to properly educate the 20%, who take care of the old and sick, fix our houses and cars, make sure the roads are fine, build our computers and medical equipment?

You really want to take them for granted?

Sounds not very smart, but I am only an underachiever.

I think 1939-45 there was a very selective education policy focusing on the achievers, and as I remember it didn't pan out too well.

Let's use the above numbers and spin this thing around.

If only the same amount of teacher would be good teacher as the wonderful lady in this article, as the amount of poor, lazy, stupid kids, -then probably 100 percent of all the students would be overachievers.

@ TigerTiger
Actually pretty much all of the 20% are disadvantaged or plaina** poor, which is THEE no 1 problem for most of most societies problems.

Go to one of these neighborhoods and talk to the kids in these classes and see if they are lazy and why?

I design and manage schools for a living and on a factual, philosophical level and educational level, and I am happy to say, that more teachers like Yang Boya appear, seeing the beauty in education and focusing on the progress of each individual student, beyond assessment, and the amazing things underprivileged and underachieving can achieve with the right amount of motivation and care.

@Dazzer
Why couldn't you spend enough time with the good students? What took so much time to teach the forkwits? Were they really that dumb? Or was your class off-level?

Why didn't the good kids assist you?

For example, it's what preschool teachers do, day in and day out. But maybe preschool teachers are just so dumb, that they actually make it work, even though they only need highschool diploma as requirement to become a preschool educator.

I would be really interested why your, plural, classes seem so uneven in terms of proceeding students successfully through their grades and goals. Because I never had a problem with it, and I have not been fortunate in terms of school choices and students in my classes.

Feel free to pm me.

The yellow pill doesn't help with all types of bad-belly.

According to our Chinese doctor, it's just for one type of infection.

For others it's useless.

You can buy medicinal charcoal online, or on your next trip home. It's very efficient and helps a lot for bad stomach.

I find the article very accurate and it reflects, most of our Chinese hospital experiences.

@macky
My pleasure, really.

I would like to ask;
If it's not even close to reality, then would you mind to elaborate.

As, I said before, I have done events in China, including Yunnan.

We got most green lights in the first two or three month. Only security plans, event parameters and permissions came through, in the last third of the process.

But we used alternative locations in terms of permission setbacks. And our connections were, let's say, substandard.

All parameters of our previous events were met and signed after latest 7month, including marketing and security, for 2000+ people.

It wasn't easy but very possible.

But I you don't want to talk about it publicly, send me a pm. I am quite curious. Because, I may be participating in an event, next year.

Reviews

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The probably most family friendly place. They have a spacious area with toys, crayons and other children entertaining materials around. The owner and the staff always have a little play time for the kids, at least when we were there.

If they would get a little play area for kids, it would get all my votes for favorite 'everything', at the gokunming awards. There is a playground (entrance fee, quite steep). So If you have kids it's the best place to hang out. The owner has a lot of kid treats for kids, organic unsweetened yogurt, etc.

The pizza is great, and could compete with other pizza joints in China. For my taste it's a bit heavy on garlic but, if you let the staff know they will moderate the garlic use.

I can only agree with the other posters. Prices seem steep but when you see the pizza, it makes sense. Portions are huge. I ordered a family pizza for a treat to 15 kids, we still had left overs, and we were all stuffed.

The dough is a bit thicker but the tomato sauce tastes fresh made, and the amount balances the dough thickness. It's always plenty of ingredients on the pizza.

So in total it's a great spot, with good prices and good and healthy varieties. If you are with kids, it is a really good spot. If the staff is busy or the toys are taken, just send your kid to the indoor playground, opposite. Watch them have fun, from the huge glass windows and enjoy a nice draft, or craft beer while munching on your tomato Frisbee.

That's why I am giving it 5 stars.

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...best coach I ever had and i practiced Wushu at Beijing University of Physical Education and with a few members of the Beijing Wushu Team.

He is sharp, he gets your daily mood and doesn't mind when you scream to heavens when things don't work out in practice.

He has very modern teaching methods and really wants you to progress. He won't just let you repeat every move until you get it yourself.

He offers free trial classes. You won't be dissappointed.