China China China...part II: Shanghai

Shanghai is probably the most westernized city in China, quite similar to New York, with brilliant buildings towering high, and homeless people on the street.  There wasn't a single person I met on the streets of Shanghai who I could trust, and you'll soon find out why.  If you are walking around by yourself, pretty much 100% of the time you are approached by an english speaking shanghai person, they are trying to cheat or scam you.  My overnight train from Beijing arrived in Shanghai at 9:00AM.  It was still cloudy and rainy, but at least it was freezing cold like Beijing was.  I felt pretty gross after spending 12 hours in the train, so I decided to immediately check into my hostel.  I headed to the subway transfer station and got onto the metro line 1.  It was packed, way more than anything in Hong Kong, and the people were much more rude, just pushing and pushing.  I missed the first train, but I wasn't going to miss the next so I just pushed my way on like everyone else.  I wish i could have taken a picture of how packed the train was, but I couldn't even move to get my camera.  After a few stops and a transfer, I made it to the station closest to my hostel, Dashijie.   I walked out of the station and stopped at a mcdonalds for some food and coffee to wake myself up.  I ended up getting to my hostel at about 10:00.  I checked in, and took a nice long shower.  I then took inventory, and packed whatever I needed for the day.  I was only going to be in Shanghai for one day, so I wanted to see as many different things as possible.

 This hostel was pretty decent.  I stayed on the 4th floor in an 8 person coed bunkbed room with a shared bathroom

 Because I was short on time, I had to plan my sightseeing in a smaller radius of the city and anything close to a subway station.  My first stop was Qibao, and I arrived at about noon.  This is an older and less touristy area of the city.  I didn't run into any foreign tourists, and the area was quite beautiful.  Because they don't expect many foreign tourists in this area, I wasn't bothered by anyone.  Pretty much everywhere I went in China, people were trying to rip me off and get me to buy something.  This was a nice break from that.  It was a neighborhood which had nice little bridges to walk over waterways, and there was also a buddhist temple with people worshipping inside.  A lot of the touristy temples i've been to have signs that say do not take photos, but this one didn't say that.
An older man approached me on the street and started talking to me in English.  Immediately i'm thinking, oh god this guy is gonna try to scam me like everyone else, but he just said "where are you from?"  I replied "America", and he said " Welcome to Shanghai!".  I was very surprised by that,  what a kind old man.  I walked along the small streets, and tried one of the snacks which was very good.  It was some kind of tasty garlic bread.  I headed back to the subway station after 2 hours there and planned for my next stop.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My next stop was Yuyuan, the Old Town.  This was a touristy old town though, and plenty of westerners go here to shop and see the garden.  I'm going to remind readers again about the famous trick that Chinese people like to play on unsuspecting foreigners.  I was warned by many friends, read about it in the travel book, and even saw a warning sign at my hostel in beijing about this.  Here is what happens.  A group of young Chinese people, who speak english very well, will approach a westerner and ask, "hey can you take a photo for us"?  So you agree to do it, and they thank you and ask you where you are from, being really friendly.  They are very excited and offer to walk with you and show you around a bit,  pretending to be your friend.  Eventually they will ask if you would like to go out to try some traditional tea.  So here you have two options, you say okay, and they take you out to tea.  You get you're tea, but you also get a bill of over 100USD, and a personal escort to an ATM if you don't have the money.  Option number two is get the hell away!  So you'd think since everyone seems to know about this scam, and its even written about in travel books, that they would try some other form of trickery.  But no foreigners still fall for this, and its still the most popular form of trickery in Shanghai.  I didn't really believe it until I saw it for myself.
Literally the second I walked out of the subway station, I was approached by 3 chinese people.  They followed the same exact script which I have just written,  I was completely blown away how accurate it was.  I agreed to take their photo and talked to them a bit just to play along.  Then finally they said, "hey there is a tea festival not far from here, do you wanna come with us and have tea with us".  I politely said no and walked away.  Not 30 seconds later of walking to my destination, I was approached by 2 girls who spoke english very well.  "oh why are you wearing red, do you like china?", "oh you are from america,  many americans are big and fat, but you look skinnier like chinese",  "want to go get some tea".  GOOD ONE. I was approached by these people at least 8 times in my short time in Shanghai.  Finally I made it to Yuyuan, saw the sights, the temple to the City God, the garden, and the crisscross bridge, walked down some backstreets, and checked out the market.  I was also approached by many fake watch salespeople, but i just brushed them off.  Stuck around here for about 2.5 hours and then headed out. 

 

 

 

                         Mcdonalds and KFC are everywhere

 

 

 

 

 

 

My next stop was the Bund, probably one of the biggest touristy areas in Shanghai. So, being by myself, I was bound to be approached by con-artists.  The Bund is an outdoor park walkway along the river, where you can see a great view of the modern buildings in Pudong.  I went there at night and got there in time to see the buildings all lit up.  The skyline was absolutely beautiful, and the rain had let up for it.  I was approached two more times by tea scammers.  The first was an older guy, so I didn't suspect him as much.  He even took a photo for me in front of the skyline.  But the second he mentioned tea I knew his game.  The next was a group of two girls and a guy again, but I told them I was meeting my friend very soon in 15, so they realized I wouldn't have time to be scammed and said goodbye.  One other instance, I was stopped by chinese people who didn't really speak english, 2 girls and a guy.  I thought I was gonna get asked to tea again, but the girls just wanted to take a picture with me, like I was a celebrity or something.  SWAG.

Picture taken by a Shanghai trickster

After getting annoyed by how many times people were trying to take advantage of my good nature, I left the bund and headed to West Nanjing Road, to meet another of Rong's friend, Cherry and her boyfriend, Yulu, for dinner.  Cherry grew up in Shanghai, and Yulu grew up in Wisconsin and attended school at UPenn, so he had a very american accent.  Both were shanghainese.  We went to a very upscale restaurant called Lulu.  Yulu ordered a lot of different food, many different Shanghai dishes, all of which were quite delicious.  It was nice to be with trustworthy Shanghainese.

Afterwards, I was on my own again.  I headed east on Nanjing Road in search of a chopsticks store.  Now because it was nighttime, I wasn't approached by anyone asking to go to tea.  Instead I was approached by pimps, prostitutes, and drug dealers.  "you want a pretty chinese lady for tonight, sir??"  "Marijuana/Hashish?", and of course "cheap watches!!"  A gay man even approached me asking me if I was gay.  i said no, and he said "I really like you!".  I just said "okay bye!" and kept walking.  I held my umbrella close to me and even had my hood up, but they could still tell I was a foreigner.  After getting to the chopsticks store, and finding out that the prices were fixed, I just bought a cheap pair and walked on the backstreets back to my hostel.  The backstreets were actually better because there wasn't any scammers looking for tourists there, so nobody bothered me.

I finally got back to my hostel's street around 11pm.  My feet were killing me because I had pretty much walked everywhere today, and the subway closed at around 10pm.  I didn't trust taxi drivers and again the bus system was in chinese.  I saw a sign for foot massage, so I figured why not?  Only in China for one more night, and what better place to get a massage.  The place seemed a little sketch but I figured I give it a shot.  I looked inside and saw a few older fat chinese men just sitting in lounge chairs getting their feet massaged by younger chinese women.  Seemed legit.  One of the women saw me standing outside and welcomed me to come in.
Of course, they didn't speak english, but I managed to figure out the price for the foot massage, about 45 yuan.  They gave me the youngest looking chinese women.  I sat down and she put my feet in this really hot water and then I sat there for a few minutes, and she gave me some tea.  There was a chinese soap opera playing on the tv.  They then asked me some question I didn't understand, and the man sitting next to me spoke english and translated that they were asking me if I wanted oil.  I said okay, but I was kinda getting worried about all these extra fees.  I didn't really trust anyone in this city. 
I soon found out from the guy that he supposedly had studied in england for 5 years, and had been coming to this massage place for 10 years.  I got more comfortable and he seemed like a decent person.  I began telling him about how all of the people in Shanghai had been trying to pull the tea trick on me, and that I've had hard time trusting anyone.  He kinda just acknowledged it.  He then asked me if I like to drink and if i'd like to go to a bar.  Immediately, alarm bells began ringing in my head.  2 days ago, a guy in the hostel was telling me how in shanghai the scammers used to try to get foreigners to go to bars and pay tons of money there, but in more recent years they had switched to tea because it seemed less creepy.  This guy must have been an old school scammer!  I just said no and that I wasn't interested in going to the bar.  I kinda stopped talking to him and just tried to relax, almost falling asleep.  The girl then asked if I wanted to upgrade to back massage for about 50 more yuan.  I made sure that there were no extra fees or anything many times cuz I wasn't looking to get scammed.  I agreed to it cuz she was pretty cute,  and she took me upstairs.  Got away from the old school scammer downstairs.  The massage was very nice and I was able to practice my Chinese on this girl without feeling intimidated for the first time.  She didn't speak a word of english,  so it was perfect practice to see if I could hold somewhat of a conversation.
I said pretty basic things, told her about my trip and where I study, where I'm from, and my family, and age.  I found out that she was 22 (er shi er), and that her family was from a province south of Shanghai.  There was still a lot of "dui bu qi, wo bu dong" (sorry I don't understand) and "wo bu zhi dao" (I dont know) from myself,  but it was okay.  I think she said my pronunciation was good based on her gestures, but that word isn't in my vocabulary.  It was one of the coolest experience, and true test of what little chinese I know.  Its truly the best way to learn, I wish I could practice like that everyday.  Its a kinda difficult to find opportunities like this in Hong Kong, where everyone just wants to speak cantonese.  Eventually the massage was over, I ended up paying 113 yuan (about 18 USD),  what was originally agreed upon with no scams involved.  You can probably find cheaper massages in elsewhere in China, but compared to the US, this was dirt cheap.  I went back to my hostel at about 1AM, and instantly fell asleep.

The next morning, I woke up at around 8am.  I almost fell back asleep, but I didn't want to waste the morning.  I still had some time to see some of the city during the day before catching my flight back to HK.  I checked out of the hostel, leaving my bag there, and walked up to Peoples Square, which was located not too far from my hostel.  The city looked a lot nicer today,  since it was actually sunny out and the sky was blue.  I was going to go to the Shanghai Museum, but the line was too long, and I didn't want to waste time.  I walked around the square, and then went to People's Park.  There, I was again stopped by the "Hi can you take our picture and then go out to tea with us" people again, but I just ignored them or straight up said no to taking their picture.  It was kinda hard trying to avoid them in the park, I kept having to walk pretty fast and it was just annoying.  At one area of the park there were many old chinese men gathering around tables to watch and play poker.  As I headed out of the park, I saw and older American couple being bothered by the tea scammers,  I positioned myself so the scammers couldn't see me and motioned to the Americans to run away haha.  I think the scammers may have seen me do this and got mad, but I just kept walking.   I left the park around 11:30 and headed back to the hostel to get my bag.

 

 

 

 

 

To get to the airport, I took the subway to the Maglev Train.  This is the super fast train that goes directly to the airport, reaching a max speed of 300km/hr.  It was more expensive than the subway, but cheaper than a cab and it took less than 10 minutes to get to the airport.  Its something you have to do at least once in Shanghai if you need to go to or from the Pudong airport. 

I arrived at the airport about 2 hours before my flight.  Better safe than sorry.  Made it through security with no problems.  Arrived back in Hong Kong at around 6:00 PM. 

And so ends my adventure in China.  I definitely wish I had had more time to see both cities.  There is tons of more things to do and sights to see in Beijing and Shanghai.   I'll have to come back someday, armed with better Chinese language skills for sure.  If I could offer one piece of advice it would be to not be very trusting of the local people you meet.  Many times they are just trying to get money out of you in some way.  You can't blame them though, its how they make a living.  Just keep your wits about you and use your better judgement.  It always helps to have local friends there too before you arrive.  I was very lucky to have this advantage. 

Back to the university life now, and gotta hit the books hard for midterms coming up!