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Forums > Travel Yunnan > Fingerprints

Looking at the Express newspaper article, it is a trial in one airport only at the moment. Which is why probably no one here has experienced it yet.

In theory great, like the use of biometric passport, fast automated entry control for EU passport holders in UK. Great, fast, easy...until the machines broke down and it seemed that they were never repaired.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Competitive salary

A thought on negotiation. Very often the employer has little to no room to negotiate on pay. Pay can be fixed by higher authorities, and/or it is something where nobody wants to start setting new precedents. Getting hung up on pay is often a dead end.
However there is often room to negotiate on other things. Scheduling is one area. I always asked for, and mostly got, all of my hours pushed to one end of the week.

This gave me all my days off together, instead of split. This has a financial advantage as well, as there are fewer days with travel expenses.
Some schools will allow a small budget for you to buy training material, where you provide receipts they reimburse you. They can claim this against tax, so no cost to them, and it save you from covering the cost (or not doing some valuable activity).

Some schools will pay a small bounty for further training. For example, I know one school that will pay you 400 (once per year) if you complete agreed Coursera courses. These will increase your career/personal development, and will also improve your prospects for the future.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Competitive salary

From my own experience, jobs that have more responsibilities, require greater skill sets (e.g. curriculum development, course design) or where you are teaching towards internationally recognised qualifications (e.g. GED, IB, IGCSE, AP) will pay better. But there often is still limited potential to negotiate.
However, being a more qualified (not just certs.) teacher increases the number of higher paid jobs you are eligible to apply for.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Competitive salary

Last sentence of my last post above should end... a few for summer if you re-sign (as in sign on again for the following year).

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You probably couldn't get a mandate to redevelop an area and build an underground shopping mall. Especially if it causes major disruption.

There is an existing mandate to build bomb shelters, and there are added benefits to both the infrastructure and opportunities for business that can be captured too :-)

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My university and tertiary students only had lectures between 8am and noon, Many didn't even turn up for lectures, but would turn up for exams. There is an old joke in China, that university is hard to get in (Gaokao), but easy to get out (very hard to fail). I was told by my Dean, in one provincial level uni., that if SS failed and exam they would resit up to twice and would be given an automatic pass after the second resit.

At a tertiary college in Kunming, I had about 30 regular SS out of 60 on the register, but 110 turned in exam papers. Half of them scored less than 30% (and I had pretty much told them the answers and where to find them (in the PPTs I gave them). Lo and behold, I was told by management that the SS all had to pass, including the guy who got 9%.

The problems of students staying in the dormitories, not working and playing computer games has been in the Chinese news several times in recent years. Unless the authorities have got a grip of this recently, I doubt it will have changed.

Reviews

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A reasonable choice of lumber that has improved over time. Fancy hardwoods like walnut, and mahogany are in abundance. There are some plywood and rubber-wood boards available. There are also some kiln dried imported softwoods and merbao available. Some of the lumber is very green, so look for the kiln dried if you need stable timbers.

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Echo everything said by others.
Breakfast great and the serve from 8am. Most other places say 9am and they still are not ready.
Sandwiches are cheap 22-32, and really packed full of filling. We got some sandwiches for a day out, the only mistake I made was ordering two, as this was too much. These are seriously good sangars, and they are wrapped in alu foil.

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In fairness to Metro, they are a wholesalers, and not really a supermarket. Hence the need for a card, which can be got around.

They have improved in the year I have been away. They now carry a more consistent range of imported foodstuffs and they also seem to have sorted out the mported milk supply.

They have a wider range of electrical appliances now, there is a coice of more than one toast. There is also a better range of seasonal non foods, like clothes, shoes, garden furniture and camping gear.