My favorite part is when someone sets off a string of the big thumb-sized firecrackers at dawn right below your window and you wake up thinking some kind of cataclysmic natural disaster is happening. I was mentally prepared for this to happen on the first day of Spring Festival, but they caught me off-guard yesterday.
Late winter into early spring is the windy season in Kunming. Humidity is also very low during this time. Both will moderate within a couple of months.
Documentation of income is only needed for wire transfers after you pass certain thresholds. I believe the threshold for the number of transfers is six over the course of a year, but I'm not certain so it would be best to check this with the bank.
To make transfers after the threshold is reached, if you're employed then you need to show the bank three documents: your current employment contract, a certificate of monthly income (收入证明) from your employer, and a tax payment certificate (税收完税证明) from the government tax office.
Paypal is notorious for freezing funds indefinitely if something about a particular account or transaction strikes them (or is flagged by one of their algorithms) as suspicious. Some people have had to file lawsuits or gin up press coverage in order to get their money released. Although the risk is relatively small, don't entrust any funds to them which you can't afford to be without for an extended period.
Wire transfers at Bank of China cost 150 RMB (plus any fee charged by the receiving bank) but are secure & reliable in my experience. You have to go to the main branch at the intersection of Beijing Lu & Renmin Lu.
@Chengdu1: In terms of subjective experience, the air here seems no worse to me than in major Western cities where I have lived. But other folks on here obviously have a more critical take, so you will have to draw your own conclusions.
As far as data covering some span of time, the most recent I have seen is a 2015 China Daily article about a government report which named Kunming as one of eight cities in China that met all national air quality standards over the course of a year: www.chinadaily.com.cn/[...]
In general, there tends to be more pollution in the northern part of the city and less in the south, especially as you get close to the lake.
Grace is staffed by American doctors and, in my experience, provides the same level of expertise and standard of care that you would expect to find in a good clinic in the U.S. I highly recommend them.
Yunnan Baiyao sued over toxic ingredients
Posted byKind of like puffer fish. Interesting.
@willdog's earlier comment is spam, however.