Forums > Living in Kunming > Advice of living costs/rental from locals, expats I've had no trouble at all with Chinese-made paracetemol aspirin etc. Local tea is excellent IF you like the way Chinese like tea - very unBritish, of course - frankly I don't care much about tea one way or another - local coffee beans are very acceptable, cost about $US 11-13 a pound, available only at a few shops or restaurants, mostly westerner-run.
I won't argue about 1980s-90s buildings (those before 1990 or so are being torn down) - Haali has a point about hygiene, but 'filthy' is too strong a word - but I will point out that many of them are homey, with trees and plants that haven't just been planted yesterday, residents that often know each other, kids running around acting like kids, old folks sitting outside chatting, a few dogs, not too many damn cars within the complex, etc. The newer high-rises here are more modern, but I find them sterile - however, I've never lived in one - wouldn't want to. There are also places in-between the 2 categories mentioned.
I've been here over 12 years.
Forums > Living in Kunming > Advice of living costs/rental from locals, expats I think Napoleon's advice is good, although I'd differ slightly concerning taxis (maybe it's where I live or maybe it's me, but I virtually never have problems with cabbies trying to over charge me - I often use them late after the buses stop, otherwise rarely) and buses (I find them no hassle). As for the underground, there are many places it does not go, including my area. Hard to imagine why you'd need a car - electric scooter, maybe.
5000-6000 a month is not unreasonable, but neither is 4000, depending on yr idea of lifestyle - Y4000/mo. is not poverty.
As for eating out, you certainly don't have to spend Y100 for a good meal - 3 friends & I ate our fill of a very good meal (4 dishes & a soup) on Saturday night for Y109 total, plus Y18 for 4 tall cold beers (local beers, not particularly good) brought in from the shop next door (note: menu was in Chinese only, as is usually the case). Plenty of more expensive upscale restaurants too. Any 'western' restaurant here is more expensive than where we ate on Saturday (which was really very good, although a bit noisy), but 'western' places, especially if foreign owned (several are pretty good), now tend to have good imported beer (considerably more expensive). Napoleon is right about Chinese restaurants tendering to groups, but you can eat a simple nothing-special meal on your own in many little places for Y20 or even less. Student canteens, if you're going to be at a university, are very cheap, and passable.
I disagree about the cost of haircuts and chocolate and milk (unless the latter has gone way cheap in GB lately).
Forums > Living in Kunming > Advice of living costs/rental from locals, expats The best way to learn Chinese would probably be to get a room in a family's house, if you can find such an arrangement, but that can require a lot of adjustment and is not something everybody would want to do.
Sharing with a Chinese person will certainly help you learn Chinese, but I wouldn't want to just show up and share with anybody until I got to know him/her a bit. I'd just get a room or something at first, until you figure things out on the ground.
I take it you've never been to China? Don't go around worrying about getting murdered.
Forums > Travel Yunnan > Beijing by train Ctrip says several trains to Beijing take about 44 hours, but Z162, leaving a little after 9PM, is supposed to take only 33 hours.
Anybody know if this is true?
Laos extradites drug suspects to Yunnan
Posted by@HFCampo: Now accept the fact that you were mistaken in literally calling for the death of all drug users and get back to a reasonable argument about drugs and the death penalty. It's really okay to do this, HFCampo, everybody overstates things without thinking sometimes, and there will be more damage done to your ego by not rethinking and restating your position than by admitting you went over the top. Other people's opinions and arguments really can improve your own thinking, they are not necessarily personal attacks - the point is not about 'winning', it's about mutual learning.
I write this not only for HFCampo, but for others who seem to think discussions, even arguments, are duels to the death, or perhaps will lead to ego-dissolution or something.
Right: it's off topic. Maybe somebody will think I shouldn't have said this. Maybe they are right - if so, say so, I'll probably pull through the enormous shame of having made a mistake, I've been getting used to it for years.
Laos extradites drug suspects to Yunnan
Posted byHFCampo: perhaps you should note that the laws you refer to about cannabis are only US laws - brings up a suspicion I have that at least some of the Americans on these forums seem often to be unconsciously assuming that foreigner = American. Are they living in an American bubble in Kunming? I'm not accusing anyone in particular, but I see evidence of this syndrome here quite a lot, sometimes almost to the point where it seems that foreigner = westerner = US American.
As for drugs, I think that killing people is a bigger problem than drug use, which doesn't usually involve killing anybody, though it often does when substances are made illegal (e.g., people with brutal attitudes involved in the illegal drug business, rather than, say, legal corporations making drones, napalm, etc.)
Laos extradites drug suspects to Yunnan
Posted by@HFCampo: Everybody affects everybody else, what's so special about casual drug users?
When you want drug users all to be killed, do you want the state you don't respect to do the killing?
I'm still not sure whether you are just putting us on.
And if this is indeed 'the only solution to the problem', I suggest we not solve it.
As for drug users contributing nothing to society, how many artists, musicians, writers and scientists would I have to name? Perhaps you'd suggest that they'd contribute more if they weren't using 'drugs' - I'm not sure you'd be right about that, but I'll entertain it as a possibility. Killing them will put an end to their drug use, that's for sure - at what cost?
Laos extradites drug suspects to Yunnan
Posted by@HFCampo: Your original comment: maybe what you say is the best argument for not thinking about everything, including drug policy, as a 'war', which is largely an American weirdness, doubtlessly associated with the nature of US foreign policy on too many occasions to need giving examples (oddly enough, US authorities very often disguise their actual wars (invasions, hired soldiers, weapons, bombs, death, etc.) as something else (police actions, military assistance, pacification, etc.)).
Laos extradites drug suspects to Yunnan
Posted by@HFCampo: trouble is that I don't think you wrote very clearly. E.g., drug 'problems' are government projects: are you talking about governments running program that encourage drugs, or government conducting programs to suppress them, or what? And what do you mean to say that governments sponsor disease and death - you seem to mean a conflict with health/medical programs, and that pot somehow interferes with them. Or do you mean something about doctors wanting the right to prescribe drugs restricted to themselves?
@blobbles & anybody else who might listen: for God's sake get out of the habit of turning (or faking) honest disagreement with somebody into personal attacks and insults. And who the hell cares about the word troll, or how it might be defined, anyway? Put me down as a committed volunteer troll, however defined, and be done with it.