Beggars, Beijing

Similar to the "art" students are students or other people that approach you with a request to practise their English. They then suggest you do it while drinking some tea and then lead you to a convenient tea house to chat over tea. It really all appears very innocent.

Be warned, the students get a commision of what you spend at the tea house and very quickly you will spend in excess of €100, with room charges, snack charges, and the tea charges adding up quickly.

I had three attempted "pick-ups" in this way happen around the Forbidden city, Tianamen area. Unfortunately I got fooled on the second one.

If you see little begger children, try not to give them money, once you give one money a swarm of them will come to you, (watch your things if this happens) and besides you can and will probably spot an older person, this guy will take the money you give them, so if you want to help them, give them non-refundable food (a friend of mine has seen a begger turn and try to sell the bottled water back to the store after she gave it to him.)

there will be people shaking their tin cups at you, you can give them lose change if you like, but you can usually just walk away.

I ran into many beggars. DO NOT give them money. A tourmate did and, after a few seconds, many, but many beggars were following her trying to get a coin in an angy mood. She had to be "rescued" by our tour guide.

Others, like the lady in the picture, just wanted to get plastic bottles. I gave the ones that the trash basket of the bus had. She smiled at me and I felt happy to help her.

I bought a fairly nice painting inside the Forbidden city from someone who actually knew something about the art he was selling. I was with my wife and her father, who are both Beijing natives, and we bargained down to 80 RMB, which seemed reasonable. You have to know something about Chinese painting to be able to spot the few good pieces.

I found the best way to deal with vendors was to wave my hand and ignore them. Speaking English to them and trying to reason with them in English is pointless, since they only know a few phrases. They are very good at these phrases, but don't mistake this for an english speaking vendor. If they find out you can speak English and not Chinese, this is a sign to them that you are a tourist, and this is a target for the vendors. If you buy something from a vendor, you can get the price down very low, but try not to get ripped off. For example: Many vendors sell small kites at a low price. A common trick is that they often don't give you the string. You must ask for it. If you buy something from a vendor, you may get many follow you. Like feeding seagulls really. Most vendors are very persistant and do it for a job, and this is how they make a living. Therefore, most will treat you with respect and aren't really bad people. However there are some that will grab and shout at you. This is especially true in popular areas. If this happens, just hold on to your valuables and run. Don't try to reason.

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Just a heads up that when you come out of the back end of Forbidden City you may be surrounded by a large group of beggars. There were thirty or so that surrounded my husband, my eight year old son and me, and it was a pretty frightening experience. Most of these people had no hands, and our local guide told us that they were thiefs that had their hands removed for stealing. Needless to say this was pretty scary for us. Keep your billfolds in your front pocket guys and women hang on to your bag in front of you and just keep trudging ahead.

As I walked down the streets, I saw many beggers and decided to spare a coin or two. When I gave to a little girl, a gang came up to me and begged for money. I was very frightened and went into my hotel asap. From the receptionist, she told me that they operated as a gang and would pester any easy target.

It was not uncommon (especially at night if I was wandering around alone), for guys to approach me with lines like "Nice girl, pretty girl, massage yes?"

I'm not sure on the legalities of this in China, but can imagine that there may well be lots of opportunities to get fleeced if you were to go along with any of these propositions.