My (Mis)Adventures in China: First Night - Swindled!

A better title for this post might be: "How I Was Swindled By A Taxi Driver And Later Got Myself Blacklisted From A Chinese Market In Less Than 20 Minutes." Yes, if the title wasn't clear enough - I did in fact make the Guinness World Record for being the 'China's Biggest Sucker'.  Not only that, I am quite  certain there is a warning out to every Chinese shopkeeper to never let me step foot in Beijing's "Pearl Market" ever again.

Before your mind goes crazy with all the idiotic and salacious things I could have done to earn these lovely honors, let us start at the beginning, shall we?

Well, it started with my birth 24 years ago...

....blah blah blah...

....and then one day I decided it would be an awesome idea to go to China! 

So off I went (dragging my friend Rochelle along with me - Sorry! I owe you one!) to Beijing - the home of the Great Wall, Forbidden Palace and wonderfully oppressive Communist regime! Upon arrival, I was, well - underwhelmed to be honest. After being spoiled with the beauty, politeness and honesty of Japan; I was wholly unprepared for the grittiness, rudeness and frankly, dishonesty that China had in store for me - well, us (AGAIN I owe you Rochelle!).

     My first taste of dishonesty happened quite literally when we stepped off the plane and into the lobby of the airport to look for transportation to our hostel. Before we even had a chance to blink, we we acosted by taxi "touts" which are annoying people who hassle you to use their taxi services. Our tout, a lady who holds a special fiery place in my heart, saw our confused, naive faces and immediately pounced on us like a lion on a baby gazelle. She quickly offered us what we thought was a normal price for a taxi (about $15) and led us down to where our "taxi" was. Now, I say "taxi" only because it was essentially a random guy's car with nothing more than a crappy GPS system inside. There was no license, no screen to tell us how much we owed or anything of the sort. At this point, I should have walked away and flipped them the bird, but I was unprepared and quite lost being that it was my first time in China (Mistake #1).

    After helping to load our bags into the "taxi", our tout lady demanded 500 yuan from us for her services. Now, for two foreigners who knew  next to nothing of Chinese currency, this seemed like an fine price - any Chinese person reading this is probably shaking their head in shame or ROFL because this equates to about $73 dollars!!! Yes, we paid all that to this lady who did nothing more than show us to a random unmarked car - she wasn't even the driver y'all!! It wasn't until the actual driver had already had us down the freeway did I realize our unfortunate mistake. >_< If that driver could understand Japanese - he would have had an earful of what I thought of him and his partner in crime!

To make our night even better, our taxi driver became lost. Yep, we pay 5 times the normal taxi price and end up lost! Luckily, after calling up our hostel for directions, we were able to make it to our lodging unscathed - pissed, but unscathed. After being swindled and driven around aimlessly for several minutes, I was ready to kill several people and call it a night. I hopped out the "taxi", grabbed our bags and was ready to leave. It was at this point that our "taxi" man stopped us and asked that we pay him 40 yuan (about $6.50) for his freeway travel.


At this point it would be helpful to share a little quirk about my family - my Mom in particular. Whenever someone make a beyond stupid, nonsense statement, question or comment to her, she gives that person a very obvious 'how-dare-you-interrupt-my-life-with-your-ridiculousness' stare-down. This  special "look" can probably make a strong man cry and even scare small children - but she is usually completely unaware that she actually gives anyone this look. recently, I have come to the conclusion that I have inherited this particular "look". As such, I try my hardest to keep this 'look' in check and stop myself from scaring innocent passerbys.

However, on this particular night I could hold back no longer. I gave him the most intense "Austin Family Stare Of DEATH" and then proceeded to berate him for even suggesting I give him one more cent after fleecing me of $73 for one measly cab ride! While the "taxi" man didn't wet his pants as I hoped during this scolding, he gave up within seconds and quickly drove away without his 40 yuan fee.

Now, keeping this $6.50 doesn't compare to the bounty these scammers walked away with, I am glad I was able to stand my ground and fight back. Perhaps they'll think twice about scamming someone else (one can only hope).

As for Rochelle and I, this was only the very beginning of a whirlwind adventure in Beijing.
That night, I made a solemn promise to recoup my losses and reclaim my pride by ruthlessly bargaining at the infamous Chinese markets.The next day I did just that - at least until I was driven out ;)

Stay tuned for the dramatic conclusion to "My (Mis)Adventure in China"!!


じゃまた

Ashia A.