[x_section style=”margin: 0px 0px 0px 0px; padding: 0 0px 20px 0px; “][x_row inner_container=”true” marginless_columns=”true” bg_color=”” class=”pan man” style=”margin: 0px auto 0px auto; padding: 0px 0px 0px 0px; “][x_column bg_color=”” type=”1/1″ style=”padding: 0px 0px 0px 0px; “][x_custom_headline level=”h2″ looks_like=”h2″ accent=”false”]Getting Shanghai-ed in Shanghai[/x_custom_headline][x_text]I was new to Shanghai — and so ready for the Great Teahouse scam
You’ve been in this situation before — something smells fishy, your gut is telling you to cut and run, you know nothing but bad will come of it. And yet you are wading into it, fascinated despite yourself, every fibre in your being screaming Scam me, please!
There’s a word in the English language for it: shanghaied. It means being coerced into doing something against your will and better judgment. And the damnedest thing is that the city where I got Shanghaied thoroughly one wintry Sunday morning was Shanghai itself.
Here is the uncensored story of my happy downfall, for the enlightenment of future travelers to that otherwise bewitching city.
It was a sunny Sunday blue-sky morning, a little crisp at 3°C but still perfect for a stroll through the winding pathways and glades of downtown Shanghai’s popular People’s Park. Over an hour walking the park, I had watched old-timers doing taichi, six-pack youth honing their martial arts prowess, and clusters of seniors pitting mah jong skills against each other. I had even checked out the legendary so-called marriage market, where thousands of sons and daughters are advertised along the shrubs on leaflets by their parents and grandparents.
Two young men stepped up to me with a camera asking if I’d mind taking a picture of them. One looked like a student, and I pegged the other in his early 30s. I obliged, and when they offered to take one of me in return on my camera, I said yes to that too.
Introductions happened. The older was Leroy Chan, and the younger Frank Chung.
My inner genius raised an eyebrow. Leroy? Frank? Really? Are they even Shanghainese?
Are you Shanghainese? I asked. Leroy was, but Frank was on holiday from Beijing. I asked them what they thought of the marriage market happening just a stone’s throw away, and Leroy, clearly more verbal with English, answered at length with much opinion included. We discussed the economy, education, my family, the Bollywood movie The Three Idiots, and my love of languages. We were getting along really well.
But soon it was time to rejoin my family waiting back at the hotel. As I started on my farewells, Leroy, apparently struck by a thought, asked me if I fancied a cup of tea?
Here it comes, screamed my inner genius. They’re going to set you up for something.
Oh shut up, I said, it’s just a cup of tea.
Only because I really had a family waiting for me, I began formulating an excuse when he added, It’s a traditional tea ritual that we students go for on Sundays. We were going there anyway, and we could continue chatting. If you’re free, that is.
My inner genius was hissing at me from the shadows, arms folded. Did you hear that? Do you really believe Shanghai students in the Internet age actually do a ‘traditional’ tea ceremony ritual on Sundays? That’s a word used to hook tourists, you moron. Which multiverse are you in?
But it was done so casually, effortlessly, that I later I couldn’t even recall the moment the sucker punch had been delivered. Thinking that a half hour diversion could not possibly hurt anyone, and excited at the prospect of a genuine and spontaneous ‘local’ moment, I joined them. As we walked briskly out of the park, talking animatedly and full of international friendship, I saw Leroy take — or make — a call. He turned away and spoke for a moment, then said to me, “Friend of ours is joining us for tea.” Then as an afterthought, “He had gone to the toilet.”
My inner genius had astute things to say about this. Did you see that? Now there’ll be three of them and one of you. You’re now outnumbered. And that detail about the toilet — too much information. He’s trying to hard to make it seem normal and incidental.
I brushed the irritating paranoid voice aside, and asked Leroy how old he was. He asked me to guess, and I said early 30s, which was apparently correct. Frank wanted me to guess his, and I got that right in one as well — early 20s. Then their friend, Chin, showed up in the main plaza, and headed straight to me, hand extended.
Inner genius was on his hind legs now. Look at that!! Leroy’s already briefed him about you! He knows they have a new goat — a foreigner — a sucker — and that he should make you feel at home.
I was frowning as we crossed the street. Something was not computing. Leroy was 34, Frank was 21. How come they were buddies?
“Oh, we know each other from school,” said Leroy, without thinking too much. Leroy and Frank’s sister had been in the same class, and Frank was a few classes down, so they became friends. But with a 13 year age difference, Frank would have been in kindergarten when Leroy was finishing school. Of course, this piercing thought only came to me during the post mortem later.
Not far off People’s Square, if you hang a left, you will be in a quieter road, really quiet towards its end. Here stood a large office block, also deserted this Sunday. Into this I was led, and two flights of stairs later was walking past rows of shuttered shops. Then into a gap between shops — and presto! The tea shop.
We were in a dark and ancient space, lit by lamps. A spectrum of teas in jars lined the walls. There were laughing Buddhas, demitasses, incense on sticks, old furniture, an air of decaying grandeur, even though the room was terribly cramped. But more than anything, it looked authentic. There were real teas, real bone china, the paintings looked like heirlooms, a couple of good luck money toads. How could this be a scam?
My inner Einstein was busy with sharp comments. It doesn’t look like a students hangout, he said. Where are the other students? How come there are no waiters?
The hostess was a petite Chinese lass in something gold and brocade, hands folded. I was invited to slide in, but realized that if I was the first in, then I’d be nicely wedged in by three Chinese men. “You first.” I said, pointing to the youngest. “In my country, the youngest must go first.”
“But you are in my country,” said Leroy, “so you first.”
And thus, sandwiched between three friendly, inscrutable Chinamen, began my inexorable fall into the Traditional Shanghai Tea Ceremony.
There was a tea menu, listing half a dozen or more teas, none of them meaningful to me, an Indian who liked his tea strong, boiled for hours with milk and sugar. Each cup was priced around 10 RMB (roughly US$1.6) — nothing cheap about that, I thought. The tea better be better than Indian roadside tea.
The ritual demanded, apparently, that six different teas be sampled and appreciated. I nodded as they went through a charade of helping me choose my teas, citing various powers and legends for each. The hostess started the ceremony by pouring hot water over the frog, who was clearly a tea-god of some kind, and had to be kept appeased. She poured us demitasses of teas that tasted liked ginger, lychee, peach, something flowery, maybe jasmine. I sipped, tasting nothing that I would of my own free will pay a dollar a sip for. Nonetheless, I agreed enthusiastically as my hosts marveled at the miracle of tea. I was instructed to place wet tea leaves under my eyes, said to prevent pouches under the eyes.
At the end of the ceremony, I was told that as a special guest, I could choose three teas I liked specially out of the six, and would get a repeat. Whether this would be on the house or paid was not clear, so I chose to pass. This was not permitted, so I had three more teas.
Then the moment of the sting — the bill arrives. 1200 Chinese yuan. Roughly 200$. For a parade of thimblefuls of tea that could not have cost more than 10$.
“The hostess wants to know how you would like to pay,” said Leroy. “By credit card or cash.”
This was the moment when someone with his wits about him would have asked why he, a visitor in this land, was being expected to pay for the teas of three people he did not know who had been planning to come and have tea anyway. However, the moment was not conducive to original thinking. I was wedged between several Chinese men, who suddenly felt menacing in the most understated way. No one knew I was here. The building was deserted; I doubted anyone would hear a scream; I doubted I could even produce a scream.
“I don’t have that kind of money,” I said.
“No problem,” said Leroy generously. “We can split the bill. You pay 100$.”
He readily forked out 600 yuan. I had no choice but to pay. This was a very civil scam — everyone knew what was going on, but the pretense of politeness, sharing, generosity, made protest impossible. Seething inside, knowing that there was no argument I could possibly win, I shucked up.
100$.
When I messaged my wife to explain why I would be a little late, and my amazing adventure with traditional tea, she texted me back: “You didn’t know? Really? About this famous Shanghai scam?”
This is a famous Shanghai scam. I am not the first. Here’s a predecessor. And here’s another willing sucker. And here’s one who tried to get even.
You have been warned.
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