Forums > Living in Kunming > Discrimination in ESL Could be, Dudeson, but for those relatively few ESL students who will go abroad to study in English, a little introduction to what they're getting into may not be such a bad idea. And some universities are not quite like high school, and a lot of them don't have to be, for the student. Students going abroad to do postgrad work will need to pick up a bit more about academic writing in English than they may have had before.
Not that all this affects the average foreign ESL teacher much.
Forums > Living in Kunming > Discrimination in ESL @ tiger: on privileged kids: understood, yes, there are exceptions.
@ tiger on giving advice: yes, but plenty of teachers, ESL or otherwise, have been to Chinese universities, where most students of English are likely to go, and foreign ESL teachers are not necessarily the best advisors concerning them.
Forums > Living in Kunming > How do you guys feel about this? (a) & (d) are often important, but it can also be done decently, if you really know what you are doing and are devoted to the 'sport' and are not a jerk, with fellow climbers of whatever origin on a basis of equality and mutual respect and personal responsibility. The idea that 'nothing bad can happen to me' is dangerous and is one held by people I would never climb with. Climbing can be a wonderful activity if you are nuts enough to be fanatical about it, and an absolutely crazy masochistic obsession if you are not.
Choose your poison, but don't use people in the process - only shits disregard the lives of others, and Sherpa guides have a long history of not being shits.
PS: I'm not pretending to have any experience with really serious high-altitude mountaineering, but only referring to climbing per se - and there the disposable wealth is not always necessary - Mt. Everest is somewhat different.
Forums > Living in Kunming > Bilingual swimming lessons? Obviously, I hope, the language and verbal explanation are not the most important things.
Counting down Kunming's Top Ten Smells
Posted byDon't worry about it.
Counting down Kunming's Top Ten Smells
Posted byYeah, well, it's perhaps useful to tourists and very new arrivals.
Counting down Kunming's Top Ten Smells
Posted byWet markets, smells - yeah, but not all bad. Cf. sterile supermarkets.
Counting down Kunming's Top Ten Smells
Posted byNice article, Ginger, and on a subject that one might not think about until, once one does, it's obvious that it should be explored.
The point about foreigners particularly applies, as you indicate, to people from milk-product-using 'western' countries and, as you indicate, it is one picked up in some southeast Asian countries as well - but foreigners from other areas will be pegged also (e.g., South Asians who use many different 'curry' spices, etc., that are not used so much in China).
And then there is the widespread smell of tobacco, noticeable primarily by those foreigners who don't use it. Baijiu has a particular smell also.
Food and Drug Administration issues southern China alcohol alert
Posted byThose responsible should have their faces publicly rubbed in the dirt.