Friday & Saturday: Live Jazz at Moonlight Corner
Tonight the new Green Lake location of Thai restaurant and bar Moonlight Corner will host the first performance of their weekend jazz band – Kunming Social Club. Featuring a local rhythm section, British keyboardist and Italian singer, Kunming Social Club will play Moonlight Corner's Green Lake location every Friday and Saturday night from 9:30 to 11:30 – entry is free. Unlike Moonlight Corner's Expo Garden location, the new Green Lake restaurant also features a fully stocked bar that stays open nightly until 2 am.

Friday: Chuck Eddy at the Silver Spoon Café
Guitarist Chuck Eddy will play an early show at The Silver Spoon Café tonight. Music begins at 6:30 and entry is free.

Friday: Electronica at Uprock
DJs Shonny, Martin and Ecko will be playing electronic sets all night at Uprock tonight, and the bar will have a happy hour (literally) from 9:00 to 10:00. Entry is free

Saturday: Ladies night at Uprock
Saturday night is 'Ladies night' at Uprock, with five different kinds of cocktails free for all women from 10:00 to midnight. Music will be provided by DJ Shonny, entry is free.

Tags: Chuck Eddy, DJ Ecko, DJ Martin, DJ Shonny, Kunming Social Club, live music, Moonlight Corner, The Silver Spoon Cafe, Uprock

Construction of an oil and gas pipeline between Yunnan and coastal Myanmar is scheduled to begin in the first half of next year, according to Chinese media reports citing Mi Gongsheng, director of the Yunnan Provincial Reform and Development Commission.

The US$2.5 billion pipeline project is one of several major infrastructure and energy projects planned for Yunnan in 2009. The other projects reportedly focus on large-scale industry, railway expansion, cleaning up Dianchi Lake, power and coal projects, construction, power grid improvements and rural road construction. Mi added that Yunnan will spend 72 billion yuan (US$10.5 billion) on energy projects next year.

China recently announced a massive national initiative to upgrade the country's energy, aviation, rail and internet infrastructure as part of its reaction to the current global financial crisis. This will be China's largest pipeline project since completion of a pipeline from northwestern China's Xinjiang to its energy-hungry east coast in 2004.

China National Petroleum Corp, the country's top oil producer, will control a 50.9-percent stake and will manage the project, with the remainder held by Myanmar Oil & Gas Enterprise.

China – whose energy projects in Sudan have already been a source of international criticism – is likely to get more of the same for its cooperation with Myanmar's government, which is run by a repressive military junta that is most notable for keeping the country's last democratically elected leader – Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi under arrest for 13 of the last 20 years.

Tags: Aung San Suu Kyi, construction, energy, global financial crisis, infrastructure, Myanmar, oil, pipeline, Sudan

Editor's note: GoKunming is publishing photos from the collection of Auguste François (1857-1935), who served as French consul in south China between 1896 and 1904, during which he spent several years in Kunming. The photos have been provided by Kunming resident and private collector Yin Xiaojun (殷晓俊). GoKunming thanks Yin Xiaojun for providing us a glimpse of Yunnan at the beginning of the 20th Century.

Year: 1901
Subject: Jukui Lou (聚奎楼), aka Zhuangyuan Lou (状元楼)
Location: Present-day Tuodong Lu, adjacent to Kunming Museum

Background:

The above photo is of Jukui Lou, which at three stories high was one of the tallest man-built structures in Kunming at the beginning of the 20th Century. The building, which straddled the street today known as Tuodong Lu, was one of Kunming's better-known landmarks until its destruction in the 1950s.

In 1901, French General Consul Auguste François took the first photo of Jukui Lou, which featured one small tunnel that allowed traffic to pass through it. Years later as Kunming's traffic pressures grew, two more tunnels were added to the building's bottom floor. Eventually, as more motorized vehicles took to Kunming's streets, Jukui Lou and its tunnels were becoming a hindrance. In the 1950s, officials decided to destroy the building rather than try to preserve the landmark, which only two decades earlier had been featured on local currency.


While photographing Jukui Lou, François took the opportunity to climb to the top of the building for a shot of Kunming from above. The photo below captures what was then the southern part of Kunming.


Today the Jukui Lou is generally known by its nickname, Zhuangyuan Lou (状元楼), named after the famous Yunnan economist Yuan Jiagu (袁嘉谷). The Jukui Lou became known by Kunmingers as Zhuangyuan Lou after a placard with characters written by Yuan was hung upon the building. The characters (大魁天下), which could be loosely translated as "it's a player's world", summed up his high profile in Kunming and Yunnan at that time.

Yuan, who was born in Shiping, was the first Yunnan native to attain zhuangyuan or "top scholar" status, and is still a source of intense local pride. His former Kunming residence on Cuihu Bei Lu became a source of public debate this summer when it was converted into a high-end restaurant, after which the Kunming municipal government announced that officially recognized protected historical buildings could no longer be converted into restaurants, hotels, etc. Unfortunately, there are very few old buildings left to benefit from the new rule. The photo below is of the Jukui Lou/Zhuangyuan Lou's former location as it looks today.


Currency image: 集草居的Blog

Related articles:

Auguste François, Yin Xiaojun and Kunming at the end of the Qing Dynasty

The White Pagoda: A young city's first sacrifice to traffic

Tags: architecture, Auguste François, Jukui Lou, old Kunming, traffic, Tuodong Lu, Yin Xiaojun, Zhuangyuan Lou

Five years after SARS and the specter of the masked palm civet have faded from China's collective consciousness, consumption of wildlife – including threatened and endangered species – is back on the rise, according to a report released last week by the international wildlife trade monitoring organization Traffic.

The report, "The State of Wildlife Trade in China", concluded that medicinal plant and animal populations were under threat from widespread habitat loss combined with 10 percent annual growth of the Traditional Chinese Medicine market. Between 15 and 20 percent of medicinal plants and animals are now endangered, according to the report.

Kunming and five other cities – Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Harbin and Chengdu – were the subjects of consumer attitude surveys conducted by Traffic in 2007. The report found that the belief that wild animals in particular were unpolluted and special, serving as an emotional motivator for consuming wildlife, while the nourishing and tonic aspects of wild animals served as a 'functional' motivator.

Forty-four percent of respondents of the survey, conducted from December 2007 to February 2008, said they had consumed wildlife within the previous 12 months. Within this group, 36 percent said they had consumed wildlife as food, while 16 percent had consumed wildlife in medicines or tonics. Respondents with high levels of income and education were found to be more likely to consume wildlife.

Not surprisingly, Guangzhou residents consumed the most wildlife, followed by Kunming residents. They were followed by residents of Harbin and Chengdu, respectively.

Growing demand and diminishing supply of wildlife were cited in the report as alarming trends which demand shifts in current government policy toward endangered and threatened species.

While there is little chance of anyone eating a panda in China, enforcement of other less-protected animals around the country could be more effective.

An excellent local example of this ineffective enforcement is the protected kanglang fish which is widely available at restaurants around Fuxian Lake, 70 kilometers southeast of Kunming, and has become a famous local delicacy partly because it is increasingly rare and expensive.

Related articles:

Yunnan's Buddhist temples preventing fish extinction

Protecting China's last elephant herd

Fuxian Lake and the disappearing kanglang fish

Tags: Beijing, Chengdu, endangered species, environment, Fuxian Lake, Guangzhou, Harbin, kanglang fish, SARS, Shanghai, Traditional Chinese Medicine, wildlife

Yunnan Governor Qin Guangrong (秦光荣) asked India to open a consulate in Kunming during a meeting with Indian Tourism Minister Ambika Soni in New Delhi last week, according to Indian media reports.

Direct flights between Kunming and Kolkata, capital of eastern India's West Bengal state, were launched in late 2007, but visa regulations and lack of a Kunming consulate make it difficult for Chinese living in southwestern China to visit India.

In order to obtain a visa, applicants must go to India's embassy in Beijing or its consulates in Shanghai and Hong Kong. For people living in Yunnan, it's often easier to skip the Kunming-Kolkata flight and fly to nearby Bangkok where there is an Indian embassy and more flight options to India.

While meeting with Qin and a delegation of Yunnan officials and entrepreneurs last Wednesday, Soni invited the visitors from Yunnan to invest in India's tourist infrastructure and called for closer cooperation between the two countries.

During the visit, the Yunnan Provincial Tourism Administration signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the West Bengal Tourism Directorate, West Bengal Tourism Development Corporation and Travel Agents Association of India Eastern Chapter to "build a mutual bond on tourism practices, exchange and understanding."

Indian tourist visits to China are roughly quadruple the number of Chinese visits to India.

Tags: Beijing, Hong Kong, India, Kolkata, Qin Guangrong, Shanghai, tourism, travel, visas, West Bengal

Friday: DJ Showcase at Mix Club
Tonight Mix Club in Kundu will host four of Kunming's hardest working DJs and will be giving away free beer from 9:30 to 11:30. DJs Kris, Martin, Shonny and Christian are scheduled to provide musical entertainment at Mix, which is located on the south end of the Kundu compound, near the Guofang Lu entrance. Don't be surprised if the bar is busy – it will be offering cocktails (gin/rum/vodka/whiskey + mixer) all night for 15 yuan.

Saturday: Dance performance at TCG Nordica
TCG Nordica will be hosting a dance performance featuring Chinese and American dancers and covering different genres including hiphop, jazz, modern and traditional. The performance begins at 8:00, entry is 10 yuan.

Saturday: Matu's Birthday Party at The Hump Bar
Local musician and man-about-town Matu will be celebrating his birthday at The Hump Bar on Saturday night, playing with his mates in the Tribal Moons and DJing with fellow Moonster DJ Make afterward. Festivities kick off at ten, entry is free.

Editor's note: Due to a mistake on the flyer for tonight's Mix Club party, this post originally stated that cocktails were "all-you-can-drink for 15 yuan". We have been contacted by the organizer, who regrets any misunderstanding he may have caused among GoKunming readers.

Tags: dance, DJ Christian, DJ Kris, DJ Make, DJ Martin, DJ Shonny, hiphop, jazz, live music, Matu, Mix Club, TCG Nordica, The Hump Bar, Tribal Moons

Editor's note: As interest in Yunnan cuisine increases around China and the rest of the world, GoKunming contributor Guo Duomi will occasionally offer recipes for traditional Yunnan dishes. If there is a certain dish you would like to see a recipe for, please send us your ideas via our contact form.

Yellow pot chicken - huang men ji (黄焖鸡)
In Yunnan, as in most of China, there is no wastage of animal parts. Thus in this dish after cleaning a half chicken is chopped up and cooked. The head and feet of a chicken are considered delicacies and will often be reserved for a guest as a sign of respect. There are many variations on this recipe, it is often made with a lot of sauce and potato added to make it a kind of Chinese curry.

Ingredients
One half chicken – medium size
2 teaspoons of salt
6 cloves of garlic
20 g of ginger
4 pieces of star anise
1 black cardamom pod*
1 tablespoon of soy sauce
1 sprig of spring onion
Oil for frying

*black cardamom (caoguo 草果), also known as brown cardamom or tsaoko, is a pod which is significantly larger than regular (green) cardamom. It is less aromatic and cooler in flavour than green cardamom, three or four green cardamom pods could be used a substitute if you are unable to obtain the black variety.

Method
Chop a chicken in half lengthways, then chop the bird - bones and all - into small pieces using a cleaver, a butcher may do this for you if requested.

Peel the garlic cloves and chop them into halves. Slice the ginger thinly without peeling the skin off. Chop the black cardamom pod in half. Chop the spring onion into 2cm lengths.

Heat a few tablespoons of oil in a wok on high heat and add the garlic, ginger, black cardamom pod and star anise. Cook for about 30 seconds then add the chicken and salt. Stir fry for five minutes, stirring constantly.

Add around one cup of water (not enough to fully cover the chicken) to the wok and cover. Cook on high heat for a further seven minutes, opening the cover to stir occasionally.

Add the soy sauce, cover again and cook for a further one to two minutes. Remove the cover and add in the spring onion. Stir fry with the cover off for a few minutes to drive off some of the water and the sauce has reached your preferred consistency.

Transfer the chicken to a serving dish, including the remaining liquid as a sauce. Serve alongside other dishes as part of your meal.

Tags: curry, food and drink, huang men ji, yellow pot chicken, Yunnan cuisine

Editor's note: GoKunming is publishing photos from the collection of Auguste François (1857-1935), who served as French consul in south China between 1896 and 1904, during which he spent several years in Kunming. The photos have been provided by Kunming resident and private collector Yin Xiaojun (殷晓俊). GoKunming thanks Yin Xiaojun for providing us a glimpse of Yunnan at the beginning of the 20th Century.

Year: 1903
Subject: Gongyuan
Location: Present-day Yunnan University

Background:

Kunming's roots as an educational hub for Yunnan trace back to the Qing Dynasty, well before the Yundas, Shidas and Jingmao Daxues of today started cranking out graduates.

As Yunnan's administrative center, Kunming was where young men from around the province came to take China's notoriously difficult and stressful civil service examinations. Those who succeeded had the chance to go on to the national exams in Beijing, those who failed generally turned to drink or did the dignified thing and drowned themselves.

In Kunming, the provincial-level exams were administered at the current location of Yunnan University, at an educational institution known as Gongyuan (贡院).

Every three years 1,500 hopeful scholars who had passed their county/prefecture exams to become xiucai (秀才) would come to Gongyuan to take the provincial exam. The few candidates who passed the exam in Gongyuan would be designated as juren (举人) and would be allowed to proceed to the national exams. Those who passed the national level exams were designated jinshi (进士), after which they were eligible for high-level official positions.

The above photo by Auguste François - taken 19 years before the founding of Yunnan University - is of Gongyuan's front gate, which is strikingly bare compared to the lush front gate of Yunnan University today, pictured below.


Related article: Auguste François, Yin Xiaojun and Kunming at the end of the Qing Dynasty

Tags: Auguste François, education, Gongyuan, old Kunming, Yin Xiaojun, Yunnan University