The last time I’d been swindled in China I went to the cops, and got laughed out of the building when I told them my story.
This time that wasn’t gonna happen.
This time I literally couldn’t afford it.
This time I was in the middle of China with my buddy, G, two-thousand kilometers from my apartment, and it was all the money I had.
I told G, “wait by the door. If he runs for it, take him.”
G, bless him, despite being one of the gentlest people you’ll ever meet, took up the post, ready to “take” the old man, whatever that meant.
A bit of background, I have a tendency of being a mark. I’d like to think that this is the result of good qualities — openness, enthusiasm, trust — but I had fake money passed on me in China more than once (usually from cab drivers, who no doubt had it passed onto them. And the thing to do is pass it on to the next sap. Though I seemed to be the bottom of the sap chain. Finally a cab driver showed me how to tell real from fake paper Renminbi by rubbing it between your fingers).
And there was the time the friendly Persian man swindled me at Sea World, the one in Shenzhen and which had nothing to do with aquatics. That was the time I found the local police outpost, with two cops sitting inside the tiny hut, wearing leather jackets, chain smoking, and drinking a pot of tea, as if trying to look like cliché hard-bitten detectives. The ones that laughed me out of the place, after a local English teacher was fetched to translate this no-doubt important complaint from a gweilo.
This time I wouldn’t be conned. And this time, it was all the money I had available to me. We were in the middle of Yunnan province, thousands of kilometers from Shenzhen, it was a miracle G and I had made it this far, and without this money we might be well and truly f’d.
Here’s how it happened.
G and I are hanging out in the Backpackers Cafe, a popular hang out for, well, backpackers. They have coffee and more importantly a bunch of computers with Internet. And it was a cool place to chill and feel like a real world traveler amongst your peers. When an older and distinguished looking white gentleman begged my pardon and explained that he was going out to dinner and simply didn’t have enough RMB on him, and he couldn’t get money out of the ATM for such and such reason, but he just so happened to have four US hundred dollar bills. Well, it just so happens that I have thirty-two Chinese hundreds on me, I told him, which was almost the exact exchange. It was also, as I said, all of the money I had. So of course I gave it all to him and he gave me the US bills and thanked me and that was that.
And then I started using my brain. I looked at the bills. They were so crisp. So perfect. I held one up and checked the security features I knew how to check. Should I be able to see the print through the other side? Where do you get newly minted US hundreds in China? Fuck.
I gave G the thumbnail sketch of what I’d just done and that I was going to get my money back. And told him to wait by the door if the grifter bolts.
G went and stood in the exit, and I went and took the seat next to the dapper gentleman at the row of computers where he was browsing the web. I knew that I was in effect telling him I thought he was a cheat and a liar, and it would be highly embarrassing for all involved, but none of that mattered.
I told him that I was sorry but I needed to exchange back.
He looked at me incredulously. Then he got his back up. He jabbed a thick finger at the screen in front of him, at the picture on the web page, this is me with the finance minister of Singapore, he said. He said it condescendingly, because I’d embarrassed him, and who the hell was I?
I don’t know that guy, I said, I need my money back.
To his credit, without much more argument if not a little ill grace, he reached into his wallet, reproduced the red Chinese bills, and swapped them back with me. I stood up, found G, and walked out the door, to recount my RMB and breathe a sigh of relief.
But wait a minute, do these bills feel too crisp? Then it dawned on me: what if this is the con? A double game… or he was just prepared for exactly this eventuality. What if these aren’t my original bills at all, but fakes he’d had set aside? Shit.
I knew I was no good at verifying the authenticity of Chinese money and told G we had to find a bank with an electronic money checker. Now. And to his credit as a loyal friend, he ran with me through twisting, cobbled alleys, asking desperately in Chinese where the nearest bank was (a phrase I could say (decadent gweilo)), and got to one just before closing. The nice woman behind the counter ran all thirty-two bills quickly through her machine and confirmed they were real. Feeling relieved, I stepped outside.
But what if this was the con? Jesus, Stop.
That evening, G and I were making our way down the main strip of bars and restaurants which hung over the canal. We were inquiring inside one, which was too packed and too expensive and about to leave, when a Western voice called to us, thrilled, from the corner.
There was the rich man cum conman cum rich man, entertaining a large group of people, and he insisted that we join them. So we did. He recounted the story, laughing all the while. And everyone laughed, his whole court of rich-looking jetsetters from every nation. Just the sort of rich, international crew I imagined I’d be entertaining some day. He told stories of helicopter-skiing and we at blood sausage and drank beer and baijou (which is, without fail, foul).