Ching Chong the Chinaman sat upon the fence...

My sim card crashed. I have no idea how that happens but yesterday my phone started saying "no service". I thought it was just bad reception, but no. I knew something was fishy last week when I got home and opened the envelope for my new sim card and realized it had been slit open already and glued back together - that should've been my first clue - yes, I'm rather naive. But it was still attached to the credit card plastic thingy it comes on and it worked okay - and actually our DSP (a Chinese guy) helped me to buy it - so I thought maybe it just got opened and then someone decided they didn't want it or something. I mean, he knows what he's doing right? I dunno. Yeah, I'm kinda dumb sometimes. Well, I couldn't take it back even if I wanted to because our DSP drove us there and I have no idea where 'there' (that little shop) is.
So today I went to a little phone shop in my neighborhood and was lucky enough to find a a very helpful younger guy who speaks a bit of English. First he tells me my "phone got problem". And I immediately think "Great. I got ripped off by both the simcard-seller guy AND the I'll-make-your-phone-work-with-any-network Apple guy." But this guy was nice enough to pop his sim out of his own phone and try it in mine and [Praise the Lord!] I was so happy - it worked! Yay! It isn't my phone got problem.
I show him my envelope the sim came in and he looks at it, makes a face and says "You buy in Shanghai?" I say "yes", and he asks again this time pointing to the phone number printed on the envelope... "you buy in Shanghai?" Now I'm confused. (Which is becoming all too often of a state for me lately.) "Dui, Dui", I say again - trying in Chinese this time. At this point he asks me where I'm from. After I answer, he turns and speaks Chinese to his cohort showing him the envelope and of course, they laugh. They always laugh. That knowing laugh that says 'you stupid American'. Hahahaha. Then came the inevitable question which supports their stupid-American-laughter: "where you buy this?". My only answer is a smile and sheepish "bu zhi dao" [I don't know.] Geeeeez. There's no saving me on this one - he doesn't know enough English or me Chinese to allow me to make any kind of explanation as to the circumstances of WHY I'm so clueless to the location of the origin for this crappy sim card.
Now he says "sim got problem".
Oh, I did have some chinese for this..."Wo de sim shi bu hao?" [my sim is bad?] I question.
"Dui" [yes, you idiot, you bought a bad simcard - sucker!] he says.
So I spent another 70RMB buying the cheapest phone number I could get. Again. But the guy was really nice and said if I had anymore problems to come back to him. I DO know where this little shop is - I walked myself there and it's comforting to know I can at least walk back if I bought another crappy sim.

The moral of the story is - you really have to watch out all the time here for scams. It constantly reminds me of something my dad used to tell me since I was little that always make me chuckle. He said there's a saying/rhyme about how the Chinese are always trying to make a quick buck: "Ching Chong the Chinaman sat upon a fence, trying to make a dollar out of 15 cents." Okay, the hilarious thing about my dad saying this is the irony of him saying it. In case you didn't know, he IS a Chinaman. He is a chinese born chinese (as opposed to the american kind? I don't know, just stay with me) but is about as American as a Chinese could be. Using this clearly American saying ("Ching Chong" is about as Chinese as General Tso's Chicken and we're talking Dollars and Cents here) to teach his daughters something about Chinese culture. But he was sooo right. I've been ripped off twice this week (that I know of ) already, by people trying to make money any dishonest way they can.

That second time this week that I speak of, and I hesitate to even tell this story due to it's further demonstration of my naivete, happened this past weekend. But here goes. We got totally scammed at People's Square by the sweetest little chinese couple. And the funny thing is we realized it as it was happening and just packed it in and went with it anyway because we actually kind of were enjoying ourselves. We arrived on the scene and immediately stepped into full tourist character and began snapping photos of the oh-so-popular-every-tourist-goes-there fountain outside the Shanghai Museum. An adorable young couple asked us if we could take their picture together for them and of course we obliged. We had delightful conversation with them for about 10 minutes and they said they had to go - they were going to a tea house nearby for a tea ceremony. Yes, this is where all our new expat friends would let out a groan. Apparently this is a very common scam run on stupid foreigners. We just didn't get in the loop soon enough to be warned about it.
I'm thinking- Oh, tea ceremony - that sounds like a delightfully traditional chinese cultural thing to do! Yeah - hook, line, AND sinker. So we go to the tea house and sit down and I'm thinking how lucky to have these wonderful new chinese friends to translate for us all the meaning behind the tea ceremony. Actually they were nice for scammers - they showed us the pricing before we even did anything - and yes, we thought it must be a NICE ceremony because it was rather expensive, but okay what the heck. We knew what we were getting into. We paid way too much for a pleasant tea ceremony and a nice tin of tea to bring home, but hey - they did give us a free gift mug!!! (Hahaha) It was a total rip off, but I gotta say I had a good time getting taken. :) And now we know...
We've since been told we weren't too unlucky, they knew someone that paid $500 for a similar deal involving whiskey. We paid NOwhere close to that!!!! We're not THAT stupid.

Ahhh, it's all part of the adventure...