My Chinese tea scam story

[pfarber]

I was reading a post on Reddit that quickly devolved into the 'Tienanmen Square Tea Scam' festival.

Oh, how true it is my fellow Reddit-tards.

I get off the Subway at T-man Square and as SOON as I passed through the exit gate a college age Chinese woman/girl started chatting me up. Evidently there is a script because as soon as I read the reddit posts I remembered EVERY question that they posted.. EXACTLY. 'Are you American?', 'Do you like China?', blah blah blah then the hook.. 'I can be your Tour Guide'. Other than grunts I never said an actual word. But when she offered this I did finally speak "I will not pay you.. but if you want to practice English I will talk with you". The 'Thank you's' started to flow. So we walk.. past the Forbidden City gate down a side street. At this point I KNOW the scam is on. I ask 'Didn't we pass the main gate?'. She gave me an excuse that there was a tour guide entrance for locals that had better ticket prices. Ok, scam alert Radar is at full power, but I figure, what the fuck.. let's ride this wave. So we walk and chat and are, at this point at the REAR of the Forbidden City. I have taken lots of mental notes and knew how to get back if I needed to bolt. So we stop at what is OBVIOUSLY a cafe and she say's she's tired and thirsty, and would I like to stop in for tea? I said no, its to hot for tea. She said 'what about fruit drink?' I said no, I am fine. She then asks 'I can get you a beer'. I said I do not drink. She then changes her tone 180degress.. 'WHY YOU WASTE MY TIME!?' I laughed at her and asked 'So there is no free tour?' She then goes into the hole in the wall (literally) cafe and brings out an old Chinese man.... I don't know.. I can't tell Asian ages and the Chinese starts flowing... every once in a while she looks at me and says something in broken English. I guess he was her 'enforcer' but at 270Lbs I was easily 2x is size and had about 4 inches height on him.

At this point it was just Chinese people yelling at each other, then me, then at each other again. So I left, and snuck in the rear of Forbidden City though a maintenance gate. The key is to act like you belong there. hahahahahaha

So yeah.. Chinese Tea Scammer fails to land a fat stupid American. At least I wasted an hour of her time. REVERSE American Chinese Tea Scam for the win!