I decided to put the complete story (all four blogs) all in one blog post which should make it easier for you to read the entire story. The first three blogs take place during my first two days in China. The fourth section takes place three months later, when I return to the USA.
Part I – My first Day in China- Feb
2012
I am
just leaving the Forbidden City when I am approached by two women in their late
thirties. "Hello, Hello, You speak English, I speak Chinese. Ha ha, we
walk with you and practice our English. OK?"
When I am in Asia, this is a request that is made of me a hundred times over. I
never say no but it is tiring to be interviewed by these people. And it is
equally hard to be polite when they distract me from my original plans. So these
two women, Jen and Tan, tag along and ask me the same damn questions I am
always asked. “You from America? You have husband? You have children? Where
your family?"
After about a half hour, Jen asks me if I want to join them for a cup of
tea. "It very cold today. Tea hot,
good for you. Good for you digestive system." It is cold and I am tired so I say yes and off
we go to a nearby tea house. Jen seems to know everyone in the place and they
seem to know her. We get a private room and Jen asks me what kind of tea I
like. I ask to look at a menu and reach for the one on the table but Jen grabs
the menu and abruptly says, "No, this not ours. This something
different."
She
hands me a different menu and suggests that we try a variety of teas. So a
waitress, who is in her 20s, comes in and pours us six different cups of tea
and all of them are delicious.
After an hour, the waitress comes in and mentions something about my credit
card and hands me the bill. I am a little confused but notice that Tan looks
away, almost in shame, and then I know something is up. I look at the bill and
it is over $300. Jen tells me, very matter of factly, I can put this bill on my
credit card. I protest and say that this is outrageous but then Jen pulls out
that original menu and I see that all of the prices are grossly inflated. The
three of them work in unison on this scheme and I realize I am not going to get
out without paying some sort of hefty price. Then I hear the gurgle of the
boiling tea pot. Jen is holding a pot of hot water, standing right beside me. I
don't think she would throw it on me. But then I also didn't think she would
try to take me for my money. So I just angrily decide to cut my losses and get
out unhurt. There are three of them and only me. Now, they were all talking to
each other only in Chinese and the waitress is growing impatient.
"I don't have my credit card with me. I don't have enough money to pay for
this." I tell them without confidence.
"That OK", Jen says, "we pay
half and you pay half. You pay more because you college professor and we just
lowly kindergarten teachers You have more money than me”.
So
they fork over about a third of the cost. I angrily pay 1500Yuan which I think
is the equivalent of about $200. I am
filled with anger and fear. So I just throw her a wad on bills. we quickly leave after that.
Once
outside, Jen asks if there is anywhere I want to go next. I tell her I have to
leave right away; I am so angry. I want to get away from her. She seems
surprised, but says goodbye. I go back to my hotel, seething with anger. When I
was in the midst of the confrontation at the tea house, I just thought that I
had to get out unhurt. But now that I am away from them and safe, I am so angry
with them and with myself. How did I let this situation get so out of hand? And
when I reflect back, I can’t determine if I was being cowardly or prudent? I am outraged and don’t know what to do with
all of this anger and shame.
I am up all night, so angry that I couldn't sleep. I recalculate that I gave
them and I discover that I gave them
about $300. Now I am filled with more
shame then fear. Now I am really mad. So I decide that I would go to the police
station in the morning and file a complaint. I try to sleep but I can’t. I want to put this behind me.
I am
up, bright and early by 7AM, the sun is just coming up. I go down to the front
desk and ask the staff member if she would call the police for me.
"No, I can’t" she tells me.
"Why not?" At first I thought
I misunderstood her but her unresponsiveness confirms what I heard.
“I don't know the number" she says without any hesitation.
"Can't
we look it up?" I am puzzled by her
indifference to what I consider to be a serious request.
"I don't know how to do that" she tells me shamelessly.
"Well, we can look it up on the Internet," I suggest with a little
tone of aggravation.
"No, the Internet is broken for three days now." She says flipidly.
"No it isn't. I used it last night and your system is on right now. I can
see that it is on. Can’t you look up the number for me?"
"No, the police will do nothing about it. It happens all the time. Last
week a lady lost $500. Police can’t do anything because they didn't see
it."
Finally, she relents and draws a map of where she thinks the local police
station is located. So I set out on my own to find the police. But that is a
wasted effort because I found nothing that remotely resembles a police station.
So I come back to my hotel in defeat but more determined that the staff woman was
going to help me.
I implore her to help me but she was unmoving in her steadfast position that
the police would do nothing.
"Get your manager," I demand with
arrogance and anger.
So she walks to the back room. When she
returns, she tells me that the manager is not going to come out because the police
can do nothing. Now I am furious. In my loud voice, so that the manger could
hear, I tell her that she has a responsibility to help her guests and she
should not be harboring criminals. Then the manger appears. She says they have
a night watchman who helped out the lady who lost the $500. Apparently, the watchman
wrote something on a piece of paper and told the woman to take it back to the
shop and she got half of her money back.
The
manager calls the night watchman at home and he dictates something to her. She
writes it down, tells me to go to the tea house right away and see if I could
get some of my money back. I ask her twice what is written on the note but both
times, she just ignores my question.
So with note in hand, I march off to the tea house with anger, determination
and just enough confidence to be dangerous. As I open the door I am greeted by
a pleasant young woman and I immediately step in to my crazy mode. I show her
the note and yell that I demand all of my money back. She jumps in fear and I
now feel empowered. She immediately calls her boss and as she is talking to
this woman, I am yelling in the background, "Tell her I am not leaving
until I get my money. Tell her I am a crazy woman. I am furious and I want my money.” I am immediately offered half of what I paid
yesterday. "No," I bark back loudly, “I am not leaving until I get
all of it."
Just then the door opens up and in walks the waitress from yesterday. She
begins to greet me but then she realizes who I am. Her coworkers call to her in
Chinese to give her a heads up that a crazed lady is in their midst. She
quickly throws out an offer for a 75% return on my money.
"No, I want it all. I have already called the police and I called the US
Embassy and I filled out a report on you." That seemed to get her
attention. She turns her back on me and picks
up the phone. She talks to someone in
Chinese so I don’t know who she just called.
"You
no go to the police for this." She said.
She sounded worried. “Police too busy for this.”
“Yes,
I did. And they have a video of me
leaving the tea house yesterday. They
showed it to me. At the police
station. They have a big room with lots
of security cameras. They are watching
everything”, I tell her. I speak with
confidence at this point because I do know that the police do watch and record
everyone’s move in China.
Then I noticed a local police officer, walking the streets, right outside so I
ran to get him. I was directed to go to Tiananmen Square to get help from the
national police. I came back in a police car with flashing lights and three
police officers.
I go
back in the tea house and notice that outsiders are now leaning right on the storefront
window and watching us. A crowd is
gathering.
I
continue to demand my 1500Y. But my
request is being denied. Then the door
cracks open. A hand slips in and hands the owner something. The waitress shouts, “OK, we have all your
money.” She holds a wad of cash. She then demands that I sign a statement that
I received all of my money. She speaks
to me as if I am the dishonest one. I am
indignant. But I grab her sheet of paper
and write “I received all of the money you stole from me yesterday, you stupid
little thief.” I hand it back with a great sense of satisfaction that I have
made a mockery at her attempt to protect herself from any further abuse from
me. She appears triumphed and clever. And I want to ridicule her. But I don’t because I just really want to get
out of there. And I leave with all of my money.
Tea Bitches: PART
III- 4 days later- Feb 2012
It is
several days later and I am now comfortable walking about Beijing without
getting lost. I am returning to my hotel
at dusk. Things are looking familiar to me.
I am beginning to recognize some of the neighbors. I see the neighborhood communist watch guard.
I wave to the pineapple saleslady. Some
of the neighborhood kids wave hello and I wave back. I notice a woman waving to
me. But I don’t recognize her. It is
really cold So Everyone is bundled up.
This woman waving to me is wearing a big puffy coat and hat and scarf. I wave
back.
As I
get closer I hear, “Hello, remember me.
I Jenny”, she says so cheerfully, so full of goodwill.
“Jenny,
Jenny”, I think, “who is Jenny”. Then I
get a good look at her. She is the tea
bitch. She has tracked me down and now
she is standing right in front of me, happy as can be to see me. Acting as if long lost friends have reunited.
Anger
surges through me and I have an urge to punch her. But I don’t.
I am too stunned to see her and I am shocked by her audacity to speak to
me with such a pleasant tone.
“Hello.
How you. Hey, we no get our money back
at tea house”. She says and then points
to her friend, Tan, who sheepishly nods in agreement.
“You help us?” she asks with a tone of sincerity,
as if now we were comrades against the immortality of the waitresses at the tea
house.
“What”,
I shout in complete astonishment.
“Yea,
they say you take all the money. They
say we get the money from you. We give lot of money but they not give it back.
Can we have money”?
My
anger starts on my toes and run through every pore in my body. I am trembling in so anger that I think I am
going to throw up. “Are you fucking kidding me?
Get the fuck away from me you thieves.
Fuck you.” I am shouting as loud as I can and the two of them jump back
in fear. They huddle together.
“We
need our money. We have no money”, she
pleads
“Get
the fuck away from me. Who the hell do
you think you are? Get the fuck away from me”
People
are passing us and watching. No one
stops or tries to establish eye contact. But everyone now walks backwards to
watch our interactions.
I take
a few steps towards the two of them who have now become one big lump of
huddled, trembling cowards. I point at
them, “Get the fuck away from me before I call the police. Get away, you
thieves.”
They
take off, not quite running but they are scurrying. As they make their way down the alleyway, I
am shouting, “Watch your purses, everyone, these two women are thieves. They are thieves. They will steal from you.”
Now,
everyone in the alleyway has stopped to watch the show. As my volume got
louder, their pace got quicker. Soon
they were out of my sight.
Back
in my hotel, I go to the bar and have a beer in celebration of yet another
victory against crime and injustice. But
as I am taking my last sip, a thought crosses my mind. “What if they come back here with friends and
attack me. Should I change my
hotel?” I only had one more day in
Beijing. I have tentative plans to go to
an evening concert. I decide to lay low
for the evening and stay in my hotel. I leave town the next day, thankful to
put this incident behind me.
PART IV- May
2012- in Philadelphia PA
It is May and I am back in Philadelphia. After a few months, I am finally able to
review my bank statements. I go back to
my February statement and look at my first ATM transaction in China.
In February, upon arrive in China, I
went right to the ATM machine in the airport.
I remember withdrawing 2000 Yuan (about $330). I remember having 20 bills of 100 Yuan. I spent 100Y on a taxi to the hotel. I cashed another 100Y for breakfast. I put 100Y away with my passport and return
flight ticket (just in case I needed it). And I broke a 100Y for my ticket to
the Forbidden City. When I paid the bill
at the Tea House, I gave the damn waitress everything I had, 16 bills of 100Y
and she gave me some change. By my calculations, I had paid approximately $250
to those damn tea bitches.
But now, a few months later and back in
the USA, when I look at my bank statement, it clearly shows that I only
withdrew 1200Y (about $200). If I can account for 400Y and I left with change;
that means I only paid about 700Y (about $115) to the tea bitches.
When I went to the tea house, the day
after the incident and showed them the note form the security guard, I was immediately
offered 700Y. But I refused that
offensive offer because I was adamant that I had paid 1500Y.
So now, there is a whole new twist to
the story: if I really only paid 700Y, there is an 800Y surcharge that I
collected from the tea house waitress.
No wonder she was so mad at me.
That means the tea bitches each paid about 300Y which is about a week’s
salary for them. And the tea house
waitress lost about 200Y. And I later learned that the local police are all in
on this corruption. They look the other
way and then come collecting cut in the profits. I am sure the police never got a cut in this
deal.
Anyway, I had a coat custom made for
me. I didn’t know it at the time, but
the tea bitches really paid for it. And
every time I wear this coat, I will think of them.
Thank you tea bitches. I hope I taught
you more than just English skills.
End of story.
