The Yunnan Military Academy stands directly opposite Green Lake in the middle of Kunming, and the two together form the most agreeable corner of the city centre. The academy was founded in 1909, at the end of the Qing dynasty and shortly before the 1911 revolution, and it trained officers for the republican and later the revolutionary armies, including Zhu De, who became a founder of the People's Liberation Army, and the Korean leader Kim Il-sung is generally listed among its foreign students. It operated until the 1930s, by which time it had produced a large share of Yunnan's military and political elite.
The building and the museum
The academy is a two-storey courtyard building in yellow-painted brick with a grey tiled roof, arched openings and an enclosed central drill ground, in a style that mixes Chinese construction with European colonial detailing - a combination common in Yunnan, where French influence came up from Indochina. It is now a museum covering the academy's history, the 1911 revolution in Yunnan, the expeditionary campaigns of the Second World War including the Burma road and the Salween crossings, and the careers of officers who trained there. The displays include documents, uniforms, weapons, maps and photographs, and some labels are in English.
Green Lake and the quarter
Green Lake, or Cuihu, is immediately across the road: a large park of two connected lakes with causeways, bridges, pavilions, willows and lotus, busy from early morning with people walking, dancing, singing opera and practising calligraphy with water brushes on the paving. The surrounding streets hold the university, the provincial library, bookshops, teahouses and cafes, and the whole district is the most pleasant part of Kunming to walk in. The lake is famous for the gulls that arrive from Siberia in winter and are fed by crowds on the causeways.
Practical notes
The academy museum is open daily except Mondays from mid-morning to late afternoon, and admission is free with an identity document. Green Lake is free and open at all hours and is at its liveliest before nine in the morning. The area is a short walk from a subway station and combines easily with the old commercial streets to the south and with the city's main food streets. Allow about an hour for the museum and another for the park, and consider coming back to the lake at dusk, when the lights on the pavilions come on over the water.
