The Bangkok Blog in Kunming, China

Day 2: Site Review and Presentation Preparation

Saturday Evening

Yesterday, after getting settled in, our huge team, which included members of the development company from Kunming, architects from Bangkok and our crew from Kluaynamthai met to start to organize the presentations to the government.  The first presentation would be given to local government officials on Monday and then on the next day there would be a major presentation to the state sponsored development company, which is one of the largest agencies of its type in China.  That presentation will apparently last for the entire day with at least 30 senior official of the company in attendance.  I have been elected as the major presenter. (Not my choice.)

The project being considered is proposed to be a model for new Chinese seniors’ community developments.  The concept includes various levels of housing, community and social services, a hospital and nursing home as well as a nurse aide training centre.  All of these functions would be tied together by a virtual nursing and home care system in order to allow people to stay in their homes for as long as possible.  All in all the whole project would entail about 80,000 square meters of space and, if built in Canada, would be valued at about $250 million, not including the value of the land.  The reason for all these presentations to government is that it owns the land in question and wants an innovative project to be built.  If they like our proposal, they will give us preferential treatment and essentially rent us the site for a nominal fee.  Who knows how all this will go.  We will need to do our presentations and then wait and see.

We worked on the presentation until about 8:00pm and then went out to eat at one of the most elaborate restaurants I have seen.  The restaurant, called Chang Yuan, has private rooms with tables that can seat many people.  You can see the table above.  There was a giant, but easy to move, lazy susan that kept getting filled with new dishes.  There must have been twenty courses served, all of them being extremely good.  And, of course, there was Moutai, the famous Chinese sprit that was used multiple times to make toasts.

After a huge meal and many toasts, explained here, we finally made it back to our hotel, the Soluxe Kunming, shown in slide 6. The views from my hotel room window are pretty nice, both during the evening and then again, during the day.

Sunday

This morning started with a visit to the site of the proposed development.  Situated adjacent to the Dianchi Lake, one of the largest freshwater lakes in China, the site has wonderful views and is protected by green zones to ensure that the quality of the landscape is protected.  The areas around the lake are really lovely.  There is a mountain range, called the Western Hills, that surround the lake.  They create a beautiful backdrop for the lake.  The walking paths and bike lanes are perfectly maintained.   One of the nice things about this site is that it’s only 15-20 minutes from downtown Kunming, so it’s not isolated from the city in any way.

Just nearby our proposed site is a public promenade that surrounds the lake. Given that it was a Sunday morning, there were hundreds of people enjoying the wonderful weather.  Also enjoying the weather were thousands of seagulls.  I have never seen so many in one place in my life.  Apparently these birds migrate from Siberia during the winter.  They certainly seemed to be enjoying Kunming, as were all of the people walking in the park.

One of the major buildings just adjacent to the promenade is the Communist Party headquarters for Yunnan State. (Slide 23)  It’s certainly an imposing building.  Although Kunming appears to be very western, when looking at the design of this building, there is no question that a higher power rules.

One other person I noticed in the park was a street cleaning lady dressed in brightly coloured clothes and carrying a multi-coloured broom.  She reminded me of the ladies who use the Fuller brushes in Bangkok.  She seemed happy to talk with all passerby.  You can see her in the last slide.

After spending time checking out the site and surrounding areas, we went back to the offices in Kunming to continue working on the presentations.  That went on for the rest of the aftrenoon.

In tomorrow’s entry I’ll cover the activities tonight. Apparently, our partner wants to take us to a traditional Chinese hotpot dinner this evening, so perhaps there will be something interesting to write about as well as something interesting to eat.