User profile: walter

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Hospital recommendations for giving birth

Specifics-wise, I heard a very bad first hand (mother's) story recently about what was reportedly "the best", Yunnan University Hospital. (Disclaimer: I am not sure exactly which hospital this is, for I haven't been there) For instance, they had no idea at all about pain management options, basic nutrition, etc.

We flew to Thailand instead (last year) where there are many options. Not counting hotel and travel/visa expenses, we paid 100,000THB (18,000CNY) for a modern/clean/international hospital to do a Cesarean birth (including pre-birth tests and consultations, 3-4 days in a private hospital room, good food, etc.) While this may sound expensive it's really not compared to private hospitals in China and is light years ahead of them. Unfortunately, you can only fly a few months before the birth and thus need to take 3+ months off work (not possible for everyone).

By multiple reports (and my personal hospital experiences here for non-birth cases over 15 years) the amount of bullshit you have to go through in Chinese hospitals is ridiculous. Let's face it: giving birth is stressful enough. Unless your Chinese part of the family insists on doing it locally and you have the patience to go through with that I would strongly recommend considering Thailand.

We have used and are very happy with 昆明市妇幼保健院 for post-birth immunizations. They specialize in kids and are located just up the hill from Green Lake. (Note that every country has its own idea of which immunizations are required, and they differ by phase of moon throughout Yunnan. Note also that international serum costs a lot more here than local stuff, if you choose to use it you will be paying US$100 or so per shot instead of ~zero)

We also went to Maria pre-birth but don't rate it on professionalism or quality of experience.

You got it right, Richland is shit. A friend of mine went there for a bout of salmonella, which is pretty standard here. Instead of the normal hospital thing in China of a few stabbed needles, drips and a night in hospital (40-100RMB: I know, I've done it twice here and once in Qingdao, plus once here for another friend) they made him stay for days in an exorbitant room and used scare tactics to claim he had to pay some stupid amount of money in case of some completely unrelated situation, extra tests, etc. I felt really bad that I let him go there. He wound up paying through the nose, I believe something close to 10,000CNY.

Facts are, a lot of Chinese private hospitals are run as virtual scams and they really are dishonest.

We also went to hospitals in Australia and France (Necker, which was the first pediatric hospital in the world!), but still heartily recommend Thailand.

If you would like help with the processes in Thailand let me know, my wife and I would be happy to talk to you.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > 1 month Visa on Arrival for India

Just a public service announcement.

If you have a passport from Finland, Japan, Luxembourg, New Zealand, Singapore, Cambodia, Vietnam, Philippines, Laos, Indonesia, or Myanmar you can get a Visa on Arrival when landing at Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Kochi, Thiruvananthapuram, Hyderabad or Bengaluru.

AFAIK there are at least direct flights to Kolkata from Kunming but I can't find prices.

Indirect flights are available to all those airports, eg. via Bangkok, and the typical prices are around 3500 return (all inclusive).

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Forums > Living in Kunming > house (not apartment) in Kunming

Some other options...

First, there are some apartments with big terraces or roof gardens, often huge roof-top spaces that were simply forgotten about in design. These can be surprisingly private and comfortable, particularly if you have a bit of a green thumb.

Second, many of the newer housing complexes in the city have extensive gardens featuring moving water features, large transplanted and well established trees and other foliage. An apartment looking out on to an area such as this (shared with neighbours) may check enough of the private garden boxes for you. These areas usually have 24 hour security guard patrols and video security systems and are typically of a higher socio-economic bent and very safe.

Third, if you are planning to get a car you could consider living outside the city proper in nearby villages, for example to the north west. While a typical in-to-city commute may now top 1 hour, there are locations that would be perhaps less and such a position gives you a lot more access to nature, better air, the chance to see a different side of Chinese society and often significantly cheaper living.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Know of a good pediatrician?

We haven't actually used one here as we had our baby in Thailand a year ago and have since been in about 5 or 6 different countries. The only place we really went was Paris, for a post-immunization rash. However, we did meet an American pediatrician in Kunming airport one day who worked for one of the big private hospitals here. Personally I wouldn't necessarily consider foreign pediatricians any better than local ones, but if you want one there's at least one here.

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Forums > Living in Kunming > Grounding/Earthing DJ Gear

I'm just a computer nerd but I can tell you a lot of the earth points are not connected. The first and most frequent culprit is any extension cord (power board) that you have plugged in. Often they give you an earth plug socket (ie. 3 pins) but don't plug earth in to the wall (ie. 2 pins to the wall only)! This would be illegal in the west but is super common in Asia. Failing that, it's quite likely that some wall sockets are similarly not properly wired for earth. The way to check is to try many different sockets and see if some eliminate the humming. If so, you have found your problem and can probably investigate connecting to your local wall socket via an earthing plug (which must exist on Taobao) to manually ground the system through something else ... an outside metal drainpipe or similar. Good luck. Worst case, you can probably run an audio filter... even my video editing package, lightworks, incorporates an audio filter aimed at mains hum suppression so the means to filter digitally must be pretty widespread. This will place no load on your CPU as the DSP (digital signal processor) in your sound card can achieve this 'for free'. If that fails, the interference is analog against your speaker cable between your system and your ears - try to buy headphones or speakers with a stronger shielding on the cable, or run your cables along a different route.

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Xishuangbanna is run Fujian mafia. Evidence includes exclusive ownership of major real estate, transport (golden peacock bus company, boat to Thailand), tourism (tropical park, elephant park) infrastructure. Central government needs to clear them out.

I have run an exchange for the last four years. It is considered normal to take full payment from brokers or individual market participants when accepting a buy order.

There are only two cases in which the described situation can emerge.

First, in some cases leverage is offered directly by the exchange (eg. 'You can put 5,000 on the table but we let you invest up to 15,000 (with extra fees)' ) as a means to increase liquidity (ie. overall trading volume) on the exchange. This is particularly the case on specific assets. Sometimes, fees are reduced or waived for certain market participants who are known as 'market makers' in exchange for a certain minimum amount of activity which facilitates a base liquidity to make the exchange attractive to others.

The second possibility, which sounds more likely, is that the Kunming operation in question has been 'double dipping' by claiming the customer funds as deposits for market positions, storing them in customer-linked accounts while actually spending the money on other things behind the scenes. Now, when some major portion of investors want out, there is frankly not enough cash available to provide. This is not necessarily illegal behavior, it's exactly the same type that UK banks were caught red handed for a few years earlier. In response the UK government enforced strict delineation between consumer banking and investment banking such that customer funds could not be gambled freely by the institution, and increased minimum deposit requirements for funds that are re-invested (ie. % of potential loss is smaller).

It's also possible that they do have the money tied up in other assets (eg. real estate) and just can't lay their hands on it so quickly.

Also check out Zigong in Sichuan, the first place to do deep drilling wells in the world ... and for the purpose of salt extraction! It's not far from Leshan, and also offers a park showing the proceeds of the rich local dinosaur fossil vein.

Sounds like an excuse. The west is moving in to Burma big time, China is fighting to stay relevant now that its long term geostrategic play of Burmese dominance and energy transit has been basically burned at the stake.

Sounds like China are going to use the excuse of poverty alleviation to build more roads and dams in the region, sell electricity and plastic trinkets to Burma thus ensnaring them economically, and perhaps try to open the road to Bangladesh or India. Burma, the US and the local state armies (Kachin, Wa, Shan to a lesser extent) don't want this. India already has communist insurgency problems (ala Nepal's recent situation) and that northeast corner of India is where China once waltzed its army in and out to prove a point before India could do anything.

The area is very geostrategically charged. Failing some kind of invasion (unlikely), it will be a long road away from methamphetamine manufacture, clear-felling forests, slave-like mining conditions, and heroin.

Sailing in Kunming

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Anyone still interested in sailing on Fuxian Lake can get in touch with me by private message here. I sail New Zealand designed, commercially produced trimarans, high speed boats made of light weight fiberglass and carbon fiber. No experience necessary.

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