The Tea Ceremony Scam

The scam is this: A group of friendly young Chinese people approach a foreigner, usually a young woman who is alone. They speak English well and they are funny and make lots of conversation. They claim to be college students on vacation from Beijing. Later, they mention that they are on their way to a tea ceremony. They ask if you would like to join. So, you figure... "why not?!" You are in Shanghai, and feeling all grown-up and spontaneous and independent. So you go to the tea ceremony and have a lot of fun with these so-called students. Later the bill comes and it's ridiculously expensive. Everybody splits the bill, but you still end up having to pay $350 quai for your part ($50 USD). You wonder how only the tea was so expensive, but don't say anything because everybody else pays their part as well.

This happened to Constanze the first day she got to Shanghai. She was confused about the incident, but didn't think anything of it until the next day she was in the same park, when another group of "friendly students" approached her. She was conversing with them, and they too asked her to go to a tea ceremony. She said no, but the thought began to dawn on her that it was a scam. This was confirmed later by a French girl who approached her and and warned her about it. Apparently the "tea house" has many different menus depending on how much money the "mark" appears to have.

Once you know about the scam, its very easy to spot, as the groups of students hang out mainly in People's Square and the park nearby and make quite obvious attempts to start conversations with foreigners. I've been approached a few times, but I just ignore them.

Constanze and I were on our way to an art exhibit when we walked by a young woman talking to a few young Chinese people. Overhearing the conversation, we realized that she was a "mark". After continuing walking for a few minutes, we decided to turn around and warn her. Luckily, we came right as they were leaving. We suspected that the girl was German, so Constanze marched in and started talking to the poor girl in German (yes, she understood!). She ended up leaving and coming with us to the art museum where she was headed in the first place.