As the previously mentioned wife, perhaps I should brush up on my ranting and raving. :)

Thanks for the suggestions. We'll be sure to hang onto our boarding passes from our arrival to try the free route first. It seems that the company that advertises here has offices at both Shanghai airports, so perhaps it would be easy to try to check it first then take it to them if necessary. has anyone used this company before?

Oh, and if it matters, the Kindle does not support Chinese characters without the Unicode font hack. I don't know if the Sony does or not.

I've read that as long as you have a US address on file in your US Amazon account (it could be a Steak n Shake in St. Louis for all they care) then you can dl books either to your computer (bucko's comment about the ISP is the first I've heard of that) or via whispernet for an extra charge. If you have a US credit card that you pay online you can use that for payment, or get gift cards. I am personally funding my purchases with gift cards earned from swagbucks. (www.swagbucks.com/refer/TheBroad)

If this is a decision that's going to take you a while to make anyway, I'm happy to meet up with you after I arrive and you can see the Kindle in person. If JJ would like to join us, I'd LOVE to see the Sony Reader in person also. I arrive on Feb 4.

I am still in the US, but I just got a Kindle that I plan to bring. My understanding is that the wireless will work in Kunming, but there's an additional $2 fee per download. You can always dl to your computer and transfer for the normal cost.

Amazon will not ship Kindles to China yet, so if you want a Kindle specifically, you'll need to have someone in a supported country (HK counts, if you know someone there) purchase it then send it to you.

Just so you know, I LOVE my Kindle :)

Is this a job you got from an ad posted here on GoKunming? If so, it would really be nice if you could give a little more info. i.e. which ad, the school, and an update on your situation. I'm really sorry you have to deal with this, but you might be able to help other people.