As we had our train ticket
booked it was now time to find the scammers. We had two options: (1) go back to
the same place they picked us up and confront them about it then and try to get
our money back straight away, or (2) head to the tea house and cause a scene so
that they give us our money back just to get us out of there. I doubted very
much that we would find our 3 little scammers hanging around the same place as
the day before as we believed that their territory might stretch down to
Nanjing Road too (apparently the 4th most scammiest place in the
world). We struggled to actually find the place where they had picked us up to
start with as the metro system has a million exits and they end up miles away
from each other, but we managed to locate the park bit in the end and began our
search.
They're here somewhere.... |
As we looked at the crowds of people
we noticed that there were two young Chinese girls talking to one lone
foreigner, presumably putting the same scam onto him as we had experienced. We
decided that we should be a Batman and Robin duo and stop any more hapless
tourists falling for the same trick so we agreed that we would amble up to them
and listen to what they were saying and then advise the guy that it’s a scam
and save the day. It didn’t quite go that smoothly.
I must have had a rush of blood
to the head as when we got up to the trio I just blurted out to the guy “If
they offer to take you for tea, don’t go, it’s a scam” and carried on walking.
Pause for effect. Continue walking. Safe in the knowledge we had saved the day.
“HEY! HEY! WHY YOU SAY THAT?! YOU RUBBISH MAN!” came the delayed response from
one of the girls talking to the chap who was by now none-the-wiser as to what
was going on. She hadn’t taken my off-the-cuff remark lightly and was now
halfway through a volley of abuse heading directly towards me. We continued to
walk on and James got involved trying to calm the crazy girl down but that just
incensed her more as she ordered us to “get out of China”. The abuse continued
as we offered to go to the police if she continued to follow us and pretend-spit
on us, and she seemed keen to call our bluff. She also demanded that we tell
her what country we were from so we could go to the embassy. She left us alone
after about 2 minutes of hurling obscenities our way (whilst the other one
simply watched from close-by, rather like the quiet one from the day before,
hmmmmmm) and we carried on our jolly way. We’d like to think that somewhere
there is a guy, new to Shanghai, with money still in his pocket and somehow
thanking us that we saved him from a scam. There is probably also a crazy
Chinese girl going nuts outside the Norwegian embassy in Shanghai…
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James argues with the new scammer |
The infamous Champs Elysees |
Second floor. Stairs or lift?
It didn’t matter. I had gone through in my head a hundred different scenarios
and dialogues, but still wasn’t quite sure how it was going to go when we got
there. I would take the lead and James would look mean and moody in the
background. With my heart still pounding we arrived outside the tea shop that
we had got fleeced in the day before. I entered first, doing a loud, slow,
sarcastic clap holding the receptionists stupefied gaze directly in front of
me. She didn’t have a clue what was going on, and from what we knew of her from
our previous encounter she knew her tea better than her English. As we arrived
at the receptionists desk we saw the door on our right was open, the door that
had opened and sealed our fate, and we glanced inside. Guess who was sitting
there, without a care in the world, looking through the pictures on his camera.
Our scammer. It was only he who was there, the other two girls inside were not
the same ones that had colluded to diddle us. There are obviously some things
from this trip that I will never forget. The skydive in New Zealand. The tigers
and elephants in Chiang Mai. The look on his face when we showed up at the
door. It was absolutely priceless!
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BUSTED! |
We began our verbal jousting by
claiming that it was a great performance yesterday and that we now knew it was
a scam and they should return our money. Once he had realised who we were he
had jumped up from his slouched position on the chairs and asked us (quite
cheerfully, but with more than a hint of panic) if we had come back for some
more delicious tea. We had to laugh and replied that we had had more than
enough tea, thank you very much. We explained to him that we had done our
research and that the scam was illegal and that we would need our money back to
keep us quiet. He realised that the game was up and tried to negotiate with us.
“How much do you want back?” he spluttered, to which we were prepared for. We
had a couple of dangly Chinese charms (that when they attached them to our bags
made it easy for other tea scammers to avoid as we had already ben “got”) and
the small carton of fruit tea that he had kindly bought us as a gift (Chinese tradition,
apparently) in good faith the day before, so we figured those plus the time,
the tea and the performance were valued at about 50 RMB. As we had been fleeced
out of 650 RMB we said that we would be reasonable and to just give us 300 each
and they could keep the 50 for their trouble. When he tried to pass us off with
300 for both of us we got weary of his bullsh*t and ramped it up a notch.
I was prepared to cause a scene
in any way I could, to make them want us out of there as quickly as possible. I
figured that banging the reception desk with my hand and shouting
(progressively louder each time) “give us our money!” would do the trick, but
all it took was a mention of the police. I advised him that there were two
police cars outside and we hadn’t gone to them yet but we would do, and then
they would be shut down. He really panicked at the mention of police and he
darted into the small room and returned with the 600 RMB that we had been
demanding. With the six 100 RMB notes in my hand we turned on our heels and
marched out of the tea shop feeling like heroes.
But we weren’t out of the
Champs Elysees plaza yet and there could have been a bunch of heavies around
the next corner, on the stairs or even in the lift, all wanting to get our
money back. We took the stairs as it seemed easier to escape if there was any
danger and the walk to the front doors felt like forever. But we made it. There
were no heavies, no shouts from behind us, just me, James and a handful of
notes! I hope they learned their lesson – don’t mess with the Gray boys!
Don't mess with the Gray boys! |
Eager to escape the area as we
could possibly now have two groups of
scammers keen to get their own kind of revenge on us we just walked in a
straight line away from the Champs Elyssess. We arrived on Nanjing Road and
took a seat as there were lots of people around us so we felt a little safer. We
took stock of our situation and then got back on with our day. Whilst looking
at the map on Nanjing Road we expected more scammers to come up to us, but none
did. A bit of a shame really, as we were ready to bat back any more
tea/drink/art scams that would head our way. Our next move was back down to The
Bund to get some less-smoggy pictures of the harbour and grab a well-deserved Subway
for lunch. But before that we were confronted by 3 Chinese girls who wanted to
take their photo. Alarm bells rang and sure enough they engaged us in the usual
chit-chat. We were on our guard, naturally, and came across as pretty
disinterested in what they had to say, without being completely rude. Once they
had left I couldn’t help wonder (1) if they were indeed another set of scammers
and (2) if I would ever trust/converse honestly with strangers/locals without
thinking they were trying to scam me.
The Bund 2.0 |
Our afternoon was to be spent
in the Shanghai Museum. Or rather, not spent, as it was free! Another little
bonus for the day. It was a huge place with 4 floors to work through. The first
area was all about the Russian jewellery makers Faberge, and there were some
fascinating items within. I had never seen a true Faberge egg before and
managed to grab a couple of snaps whilst the security guards weren’t looking.
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A real life Faberge egg |
The next section contained some
amazing ceramics dating back to the Ming dynasty and before. Well, LONG before.
To the point whereby we didn’t believe that some of these pots were actually 7
to 8 thousand years old. Surely someone would have dropped it in all those years?
Even so, some of the artefacts there were amazing, if not a little too
numerous.
An old chamber pot |
There were also exhibits of
artwork, coins and furniture spread across the next couple of floors. The last
floor had traditional Chinese dress and the Chinese Opera masks, some of which
were pretty hideous! But by then it had been a long day and it was time to head
back, stick the kettle on and take the weight off the feet.
An old coin, with a James in the middle |
We found a Sichuan restaurant
for dinner that night and it seemed very expensive when we walked in, but the
menu proved us wrong. It was certainly a very elegant place and we felt a
little out of place if we were being honest. It was pretty difficult to get our
order across though as the waitress spoke not one word of English. We managed
to point at the things on the menu and she wrote them down, but once the order
was complete she pointed at a Chinese symbol at the top of her notepad and said
something in Chinese. I had no idea what she was asking and couldn’t work it
out by deduction so I shook my head in a non-understanding way. For some reason
she thought I might have better luck if she wrote it down in Chinese……I didn’t.
We thought that maybe she was asking how hot I wanted it, so I pointed to a
chilli on one of the other dishes and she seemed to get the message. It was a
tasty meal too, and one that was probably a little more than we would normally
pay, but as we had got back our money from the scammers we cared not one jot
about the price, it was the taste of success!
Hmmmmmm, the spicy bull frog looks good... |
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