a few words on the darker side of beijing…
everywhere you go, and i do mean everywhere, someone will be trying to sell you something. it could be someone relatively official hawking gaudy souveniers or a peasant trying to make money selling maps, but it is assured, you will be harassed. fake fur hats, mao watches, little red books, incense, miniature flags, there’s no limit to the tackiness of the trinkets being sold. to be sure, not many vendors are aggressive in any manner, but they’re all relatively annoying. and they will disturb whatever setting you’re trying to immerse yourself in; i was a little taken aback by how many stores there are in the forbidden city. china has not learned restraint in commercial ventures. i wonder how this will play out when beijing is swamped by international visitors for the Olympics in 2008…
along a related line are the scams that chinese locals try to run on tourists. the most common, which is also mentioned in most guidebooks, involves art students setting up an exhibition and wanting you to see the last day of it. then they give you a hard sell on some of the (worthless) art there. not mentioned in the guidebooks, however, is the scam that i fell victim: the teahouse scam. i will elaborate.
i was walking in tiananmen square, on my way to quianmen, an old-time marketplace. 3 chinese girls stop me on the stairs and ask to talk to practice their english. they speak very well and one speaks exceptionally well, even using “calcification” in a sentence at one point. it’s all laughs and smiles and they offer to walk me around the old town and since i’m going there anyway, i agree.
we walk for 5 or 10 minutes and they ask if i’d want to see a tea ceremony. i actually already had in shanghai, but it was fun, so i agree. we head up to the teahouse (which they pick) and get a room. we taste maybe 5 or 6 different teas and there are small snacks, as well. it’s all going swimmingly and then we get the menu (thank you very much) and the bill….for 2200 yuan, or almost $300.
i shouldn’t have to tell you that this price is absurd to a criminal degree. it’s honestly like selling cups of hot water on the street for a few hundred dollars. so i see the bill and i just start to laugh because the idea that i’m going to pay this (all the girls are now watching me) is ludicrous. i hadn’t spent that much on my entire trip up to that point and i certainly wasn’t going to spend it for shitty tea.
i reached in my pocket and pulled out a couple hundred yuan (around $25) which was still more than i should have paid, but i put it on the table and declared that was all i had. the explained that the teahouse took credit cards - how convenient! i explained they could kiss my rich, white ass. they were still “arguing” about how to pay when i simply got up and left. i wondered whether it was really a scam or not until i met some dubliners who had the exact same thing happen to them. then all doubt was erased when i googled beijing tea scam. in all seriousness, someone should do something about this.
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