Trips to Billie’s Café in downtown Kunming were one of their entertainments. The Cafe was on a strip that was an oasis in the middle of town, as the rest of Kunming was out of bounds to army personnel. Billie’s Café was the only restaurant where they could eat the lettuce without getting Montezuma’s revenge (or in this case, Fu Man Chu revenge.) Dad has a menu with prices in the hundreds of Yuan. For any kind of steak - Porterhouse, T-bone or Tenderloin, it cost 330.00. Chicken was more expensive - 350.00. And if you wanted Boneless Chicken - it was 400.00. All of this was a la Cart. Bread, potato, drinks, vegetables; even butter was extra. No alcoholic beverages. When Dad first arrived in Kunming, the rate of exchange was 25 to one American dollar and when he left, it was 400 to one. He figures the steaks and all the trimmings cost about eight American dollars. Of course the prices kept changing as the rate of exchange did.
 

Down the street from Billie’s Café was the movie house. They showed old American movies in English at one o’clock one day, at four the next day, at seven the next day and at ten the next night and so on. They didn’t sell popcorn, but you could buy salted pumpkin and sunflower seeds. The floor was littered with the shells. There were plenty of shops selling Chinese silk and silk clothing. There were a lot of nice things for sale but they wanted to wait until they were going home before buying some of them.