Shanghaied!

Travelers to Shanghai need to know two words: bo yao. “Don’t want.” You will use them constantly, because the sight of a white face (and there are plenty of them) seems to evoke an automatic reaction to sell to the Shanghainese. I can’t count the number of times I heard “Lady-watch-purse” all said in one breath—then they show you a picture of designer purses and watches. If you go for it, you get led to some back alley shop (you’re totally safe physically and they won’t take your money from you—Shanghai is safe until you open your wallet) and show you an amazing array of “designer goods.” To bargain keep saying bo yao—you can intersperse it with a few bo haos (no good) and zai tians (see you later)—and they’ll keep lowering the price until you yao. Which is why I now own a large leather Jimmy a-Choo purse purchased for the princely sum of $28.




To get to Shanghai, at least if you’re me, you need 3 more words: za ma dao: ‘I want to go to.” Mix this with a sheet of the names (in Chinese) of the popular places in Shanghai, torn out from your guidebook (with a somewhat pathetic map of Shanghai on the reverse side) and you’re cooking with gas. I taxied from my apartment to the bus station, said a firm “Dao Shanghai” at the ticket center and received a somewhat incomprehensible ticket with some numbers and a lot of Chinese (the Chinese are so stubborn about wanting to write everything in Chinese). Then my moment of horror occurred. I’d pulled out money from an ATM 3 weeks ago and not needed any since then—a few hundred goes a long way here. Well, after purchasing my ticket, I went to the ATM at the station and….no money emerged. I got a “please contact your provider message.” I had, with the exception of the money to get back, about $14. And China is a cash only society—very few places take cards. But I was so focused on getting on the bus that I didn’t think about turning back; instead I spent the three hours on the bus turning over in my head how to contact an American bank with a 12 hour time difference, no access to the internet, and no money to make a very long distance phone call and how to stretch my money. As it turns out, I just needed an ATM that recognized my card and I was fine—it’s somewhat random which ATMs I can use and which I can’t—some that say Visa are fine, others refuse me money. But it made for a less than relaxing bus ride—I couldn’t sit back and enjoy the movie they showed (all the busses—even the intown ones—have flat screens in them). The movie, btw, was Shanghai Knights, which I thought was pretty hilarious (the fact that they showed it, not the movie itself). Owen Wilson speaks excellent Chinese.



Once I got the Shanghai bus station, I took the metro into the tourist part of town. Shanghai has 18 million people and I think half of them were in the metro station. The place was teeming with people and, while the subway map did have English translations, they were in about 5 point font and the sign was posted at the eye level of Yao Ming. But I stood in line and used my trusty “Za Ma Dao” and pointed to the characters for people’s square and the guy behind me punched the right stuff into the machine and helped me get my ticket. I might have felt like a bigger dumbass if the Chinese man in front of me also hadn’t been able to work the machine (I think he kept putting the money in at the wrong time) and about 1 million of the 8 million people at the metro station gathered around him to yell, offer advice, and yell some more. It wasn’t quite fish ball level, but it got close.



So I’ve spent all this time describing my somewhat frazzled state of mind, because I have to admit something embarrassing: I got scammed. I’d even read about this scam, but I still fell for it. Basically, some friendly kids approach you, strike up a conversation, offer helpful advice and then mention they’re going to a tea ceremony and gosh, would you like to come. At the tea house (which is tucked into some nondescript mall) they either disappear before the bill or take a cut of the hugely inflated bill. Well, there I was, confused, worried about money and frazzled and as I was enjoying the pretty fountain and masses of people, these nice kids with excellent English asked me to take their picture and…well, you see where this is going. As we entered the tea house I realized what was going on, but I think I was just too embarrassed to back out, though I certainly kept an eye on them so no one was running anywhere before the bill was paid. Here’s the part I’m sort of proud of though. These scams usually run people at least 1000 RMB—the least I’d seen in reports on the internet was 700. It only cost me 300 RMB. It might be because I spoke a few words of Chinese so they weren’t sure how much I knew was going on, or maybe that I really firmly said I was a poor teacher without much money. But I’d like to think they liked me and gave me a discount. They even insisted on giving me their email addresses and walked me to Nanjing street (a major thoroughfare) and explained how to get to my hotel. Then, after very seriously warning me to keep a tight hold on my purse and not have any valuables in my backpack, they sent me on my way. So I got directions, some tea and explanation of a tea ceremony, 20% of which I’d wager was actually true, and found an ATM that worked, all for under $50.



Shanghai sight-seeing in the next post, though pictures may take a while—the blockers are making my blocker blockers work overtime and things are very slow.