Kung Fu Tea Party

I went for a walk in People's Square last weekend. I have a Lonely Planet guide book which has suggested walking tours. It's great.

People's square is sort of like ground zero in downtown Shanghai. It is one subway stop east of my apartment. It's right next to the main shopping area, the art museum and the performing arts center.

The park is pretty entertaining. They have rides for kids including bumper cars and one those swing rides. They also have a little pool filled with goldfish. You can get a tiny fishing pole and go fishing for goldfish. I thought it was for kids but there were lots of grown ups all crowded around this little wading pool trying hook a fish. Who knows what happens to those fish after they get caught.

I went to the art museum. It was extremely high quality. My favorites were the Buddhas, the jade and the furniture. It deserves about 3 or 4 hours and is definitely worth it. You get one of the things that you can listen to as well. They did not tell me they wanted a deposit when I paid. In true Chinese fashion, I talked the girl down on the deposit. She wanted about 50 US dollars which I did not have so she took everything I had in my wallet which was about 30. She was pissed.

After the museum, I was pretty spent but I was determined to grind out the rest of my walking tour. I was standing there with my tour book when a group of people came up to me and starting chatting me up. I too tired to run or make up an excuse so I talked to them. After a while I found out they were visiting students and they were on their way to a tea ceremony and they asked me to join them. I thanked them and said no.

I found a bench and continued reading my tour book to make sure I did not miss anything. Just then two girls walked by and said hello. They too were students just visiting and were on their way to the tea ceremony. They said it was a “Kung Fu Tea Ceremony” and it only happens once a year. For some reason I thought we would sit around and chug tea while some guys went at each other with axes and knives. Since I was heading that way anyway, I walked with them.

After some twists and turns, they entered a mall. At the bottom of some stairs was a sign that said “Kung Fu Tea Ceremony”. It was clearly a scam. I wanted to give them pointers on how they could sell it better. The girls were excellent liars though. They had me going for at least 15 minutes that they liked me and wanted to have tea with me. My revenge was chewing up a half hour of their time because they thought they had a fish on.

I looked it up when I got home. The tea ceremony scam is when some cute girls get a foreigner to go to tea. Then some snacks show up. The guy gets stuck with a bill that could be as high as several hundred dollars. The tea house has some burly guys that help you find your wallet. The girls get a kick back.

So, if you are a white guy reading a tour book in People’s Square in Shanghai, remember that in a town of 17 million people, the odds of some strangers asking you to have tea with them and not wanting something from you are low.