In the evening, I stopped by a western-style bar that my bartender described as a diner bar, serving both drinks and sit-down meals. Over cocktails, we talked about what I perceived as the surprisingly large number of foreigners in Kunming. When I asked about their origins, she told me that many of the non-Han Chinese are ethnic minorities, but that the “black people come from Myanmar.” There are definitely quite a few Southeast Asians here, some Burmese, but I learned that in China, anyone with very dark skin is often considered black. This is quite different from America, where the term only refers to people with African ancestry.

She also shared a funny story about a white foreigner who skipped learning Mandarin altogether and decided to learn the local Kunming dialect instead. This dialect is spoken mainly in and around Kunming, not even across the entire province. It would be like someone in the United States ignoring English completely and only learning Navajo. Learning any language is a huge investment of time and energy, so it surprised me that someone would put all that effort into one with such limited use.