Kunming, China Sept.27, 2016
Breakfast at CX-Hk lounge, Streets and People
I took a red-eyed flight by Cathay Dragon from Haneda and landed at Hong Kong early in the morning. It is around 6 in the morning. Few people were there in the vast gate area of the airport. I am taking another flight to Kunming the afternoon to attend a business meeting. There are a few hours before the next flight. I decided to stop by “Cabin”, one of the Cathay Pacific’ lounges, to have breakfast and kill time. You can have meal and drink watching aircraft are coming and leaving through the large windows. After having Chinese Fried noodle with beer, I moved to another section and relaxed with snacks and drinks. I realized some people got around a large TV monitor nearby and I found two similar faces on the screen.: Hilary and Trump! Yes, it was a live presidential debate. To be honest, I did not like the debate between them at all. I thought I should not have watched it. I stopped watching and moved to another section of the lounge.
Kunming is the seat of Yunnang province, southwest of China. Landlocked province facing Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam. It has been the crossroad with Southeast Asia since the ancient times. It was once known as Shangri-la of this world. It was one of items in my bucket list. I wanted to visit someday dreaming of wonderful greenery villages of ethnic tribes there. With an hour or so after the plane took off, I saw a large plain fields in the middle of brown land. Seeing a lot of people, buses and cabs just outside the airport, I realized that it was not the place I expected to be like. Kunming is actually a modern city with population of nearly 7 millions in the Southern Yunnan province. From the window of the bus from the airport to the hotel, I could see a lot of modern high buildings. I would not be able to see a place like I dreamed unless I did not travel further towards the borders of the neighboring countries .
The center of the city is crowded with people and the roads are with cars and trucks. The city has developed at the rapid speed in the last thirty years and old buildings were demolished to build the modern city and their life has changed. Walking through those clean streets, I ran into an area of small businesses in old buildings are lining. A couple is working to make something on the street from where soaring modern buildings can be seen. People of Kunming are living modern and old. That is what we, Japanese, experienced during high economic growth period in the 1960’s. Most of People I saw on the streets look Han Chinese. Majority is Han Chinese. During the stay, I was able to see a woman in her tribal clothes at Kunming railway station. I think she must have come to this town by railway.
There are street vendors of fresh fruits on the road. Somedays such scenes might disappear I am afraid.