Shanghai Would Like You to Buy a Watch

The first time I visited New York was in 1989. I was 13 years old, on a student tour group seeing the sights and taking in Broadway musicals. We spent a lot of time wandering around an unreformed, pre-Disney Times Square, for which we were carefully prepped: instructed, among other things, not to engage with the shady characters selling fake Rolexes out of black briefcases on the sidewalk. One of our group's members, a slightly older girl named Angie, took the message very seriously, and when I happened to cast a glance over my shoulder at one of the hawkers, barked out an anxious reprimand: "DON'T LOOK AT THEM!"

New York used to be a place with a worldwide reputation for parting rubes from their money - from the thieves and swindlers of the 19th century to the Three-Card-Monty dealers of the 1980s, the city was traditionally flush with dangers for visiting bumpkins, immigrants, sailors, and other first-timers. I mention this because it's funny to note that Shanghai seems to be carrying on the tradition, at least in a more modest form. Of course, Shanghai was famous for waylaying people as well - the city's name became a notorious verb; what goes on now isn't anything as bad, but it's notable for having more hustle and hassle than other places we've been in China. It ranges from the merely annoying (the constant badgering by fake-watch vendors) to the infuriating (the $5 haircut that balloons to $40 when a handful of "conditioner" is thrown in), to the criminal (the common tea festival scam, which was tried on us - unsucessfully, I should add - by a trio of seemingly-friendly young "tourists from Shenzhen").

It hasn't seriously damaged our impression of Shanghai - pissed off as I was about the haircut - which is a really pleasant and fascinating city. But if Shanghai had been our first stop in China, rather than our second-to-last, we might have developed a level of cynicism about interacting with people that would have been unfair to the many honest and kind people we've met elsewhere in this country. But I guess that's just the big city for you...

UPDATE: After I wrote this post, Rachel and I walked down East Nanjing Road to People's Square, where two more groups of clean-cut youngsters tried to strike up conversations in textbook tea festival scam-style. Apparently People's Square is a notorious staging point for this swindle, but it's quite striking to see how common it is.