Scams and tourist traps multiply in Beijing. Black taxis at the airport, so-called sexy bars where Sanlitun touts dry to drag you to and the infamous tea house rip-offs.
The tea house scams are well known in Beijing, the Chinese and local English press has reported them several times. The trick is simple: “friendly” Chinese boys and/or girls target tourists, mostly in the Tiananmen area, start a conversation and suggest to chat more in a traditional tea house, like in Dazhalan Street south of Qianmen. Sounds oh so cool for those innocent tourists. The victims then get a spicy bill for some cups of tea, like RMB 2,600 (260 euro). Failure to pay results in physical threats and abuse, lock-up in the tea house or worse. Of course, no receipt is given. The tea houses are well known and come up with fake reasons like, “expensive tea”, “shows” and alike.
The latest victim was the son of my friend Serge Janssens de Varebeke, no less than the President of the European Chamber of Commerce in China (EUCCC). Poor Serge called several police departments who all had one reply in common: “not our concern”. They just came with the lamest of excuses while the whole Chinese press is aware of the crooks. One may wonder – the police is useless, or is too close to the scam operators, or simply don’t care about tourists and the image of Beijing. Or all of them. What a nice publicity for Beijing! The Chinese are sooooooo friendly, right? Welcome to Beijing 2008! And the mayor asks all Pekinese to smile? Better clean up the streets of touts, pick-pockets, crooks, drug dealers and alike. But as we all know, Tiananmen security services are toooooo busy looking for those dangerous religious extremists. Now, that’s a priority. Who cares about criminals?
As Serge said, those things do not happen at the same rate in Shanghai. There the authorities seem to care a bit more about their image.
Serge is not giving up, once he is back from his trip to Europe he intends to call all possible foreign journalists and invite them to have a look at the tea house in Dazhalan. I will be happy to join.
No wonder the same authorities are clamping down more and more on the press who could expose the scams. It might have adverse economic consequences for all those friendly Chinese youngsters wandering around on Tiananmen. Who would want that? They would not be able to afford their Chivas with green tea in Babyface or alike, or their private karaoke room. We westerners are so selfish. Shame on us.
Well, I am ashamed for Beijing. People come to me “as advisor for the Olympic Economy” with the Beijing Government. What can I tell them?
Well, at least there has been a crackdown on the drugs. All club and disco owners have been warned not to allow any drug users on their premises – fines are serious, the venues can even be closed.
But more has to be done.