Taking Care of Business

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The flight to Kunming was very much like the flight from Changsha to Shanghai -- painless. Once again, I was amazed by how quickly everyone boarded the plane. In Changsha, we managed to start the boarding process just fifteen minutes before the scheduled departure and we left on time. In Xi'An, we were done boarding (a packed 767, mind you) fifteen minutes before the scheduled departure. One other thing about Chinese flights, the captain never once came on the intercom. Our "purser" took care of all of the announcements -- in Chinese and English too, mind you. The other thing I love is leaving (or arriving) in a city of 5+ million people and not even waiting behind a single aircraft to take off. Will the wonders never cease?!

I managed to catch a public bus from the airport to the hostel with a minimum of effort. On first impression, Kunming was infinitely nicer than Xi'An and Beijing, at least in terms of pollution. I could actually see blue skies. Plus, and this was the real kicker, the weather was fantastic -- 75 or so and sunny. Definitely the nicest city I've been in in China, at least from a weather and pollution perspective. I've heard nice things about Chengdu as well, but that city will have to wait for later.

My main reason for hurrying to Kunming was two-fold. First, I wanted to ensure that I was within striking distance of the Laos border before my visa expired. And second, I needed to take care of something that I had been putting off -- taxes. I decided Kunming would be a good base to park and deal with the taxes before heading off to Laos. So, let me apologize for what is probably going to be a boring entry as I didn't even bother to do any real sightseeing.

So, aside from taxes (which I didn't even technically finish) what did I do for four days in Kunming? Not a lot. I did enjoy the best weather since, oh I don't know, Spain probably. Kunming is at about 6200 feet which along with it's almost tropical latitude, gives it the weather of southern California. So, I spent four days enjoying 75 degree days and 65 degree evenings. Tough to beat.

I also spent a great deal of time experiencing something that I didn't expect to see in China -- Walmart. My main reason for going into the store was curiosity. Would it be just like a supercenter in the US? No, not quite, but a lot of things were pretty close. I did pick a really bad time to go in the first time (yes I went back a couple times). It was Sunday afternoon, and the whole of Kunming must have been in the cramped, three-storey store. It was amazing, there was a queue of people waiting to look at the soap. Plain, simple, bar soap. Apparently there must be something pretty novel about the stuff, though, because people were jostling to get a spot to inspect the various brands. I gave up and decided to get soap later. My next goal was to find some real, American-style socks (that is to say tube socks). You might be tempted to laugh as I was the first time I went shopping for socks in Asia, but soon you discover that all they have are thin, synthetic socks that are virtually useless. Walmart, unfortunately, let me down here. They had quite a sock selection, but none of the thick, cotton variety. I did find some promising underwear though, and after converting inches to centimeters to ensure that medium wouldn't be like our 2XL, I grabbed a pack. Much to my dismay I discovered they were actually 2XL's in a medium package when I got back to the hostel!

My next stop was in the grocery section. I found it to be much like any other supermarket in asia complete with all manner of processed foods that even I wouldn't dare try. The fresh produce section was a different beast entirely. You see, labor is extremely cheap in asia and so big stores like this love to take advantage of that cheap labor. In the US, if you want to buy a bunch of bananas you just grab the ones you want and the cashier weighs them for you. In Europe, you have to weigh them yourself (don't forget this, the cashiers are unforgiving!). In Asia, there are people to weigh them for you! Sounds great, right? Hardly. I've already discussed queuing in China, so now use your imagination to apply that to a crowded supermarket full of irritable people who need to get their entire cart of produce weighed by someone who insists on telling you the weight and price of each item as it gets weighed. It's chaos. Imagine people pushing their bag of apples onto the scale before the last batch has even been removed. Other people come in from different angles to outflank your attempt at being at the front of the line. The only way to make progress is (as in the case of every other queue) to play the game. You can't be afraid to do a little elbowing. Nor can you afford to wait patiently while the little old ladies weigh their whole carts. They're the most ruthless of the lot (probably because they have the most practice)! There was one thing about walmart that really reminded me of home, though. The checkout lines in Kunming took just as long as the ones at home. Labor is cheap in Asia (and America as far as walmart is concerned), but that doesn't mean you should have ever enough cashiers on hand. Better to have some produce-weighers, or greeters, or people who stand around chatting than people working on getting the customer out the door!

Aside from working on my taxes and going to walmart, I had a fun experience getting US dollars to use in Laos. It seems that the Chinese love to take your dollars and turn them into Yuan, but getting those dollars back is a bit trickier. I'm not entirely sure what the problem is -- it has something to do with the Yuan being pegged to the dollar, but frankly I couldn't care I just wanted greenbacks! In Vietnam I walked into a bank with a fistful of Dong (not quite the title of a famous movie) and walked out with dollars. Sure, I had to sign some forms and show them my passport, but who cares? In China I first attempted to make the exchange at a small branch of the Bank of China. After some wonderful pantomimes (I showed them Yuan and then dollars and made fun gestures) they finally wrangled up an English speaker who told me to go to the main branch. A classic case of "not our problem". Fine. So, I went to the main branch and duly waited in line (they've instituted a take-a-number system and it seems to work). I waited patiently and when my number was called, the woman spoke enough English to tell me to go to the other counter -- you know, the one not marked "CURRENCY EXCHANGE" and talk to them. This was shaping up as another classic case of, you guessed it, Not My Problem. Well, I was having none of that, I mean seriously, I already waited in line once I wasn't about to take another number. The main problem seemed to be the fact that she assumed I wanted to trade dollars for Yuan. Well, it took some explaining (gestures helped here) before she realized that I wanted dollars. This resulted in her running off to talk to a manager who then came over to talk to me. I explained the situation once again and was told I needed to have exchange receipts. What the hell? I don't exchange money I told her, I use the damn ATM. They conferred for a bit and then asked why I wanted dollars. That one was easy to answer. I told them that I was heading to Laos, where apparently, there are a total of between 1 and 3 ATM's in the entire country. Of which, none are thought to be reliable. Therefore, I needed hard currency and Yuan wasn't going to cut it. This seemed to satisfy her somewhat, but it seemed like the exchange receipt was still hanging things up. So, I suggested that I could go and use the ATM (I was actually planning this, having suspected there would be problems) and show them the receipt. They liked this idea and I was ushered off to use the friendly ATM where I took out the daily limit of 2000 Yuan ($250). I came right back with my stack of notes. The woman at the counter gave the receipt a cursory glance before handing over my dollars. All that hoopla over the need to view a receipt. They didn't even make a copy of it. Oh well, I was just happy to have some cash. I was also a little uncomfortable to be heading back to the developing world with a few hundred dollars on my person, but what can you do?

That's about it for Kunming. I went back to walmart several times for the cheap coca-cola, good bananas, and edible muffins. I consumed the coke and muffins while working on my taxes. I also enjoyed long walks in the sunshine and watched the third season of entourage. Sorry for not doing anything interesting in Kunming.

Stay tuned for the next entry as I head into Laos.

PS, now that I'm in Laos, the internet isn't exactly fast so photos will come when they come.

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