Overpriced bitter English tea in Beijing

Swarms of pilgrims and tourists flocked to the Forbidden City on the Friday of National Day golden week. I must have stood out like a sucker.

It was my first time visiting Tian'anmen Square and the City. Normally, I try to steer clear of the hotspots during high-traffic hours, but I made an exception for this excursion - existing among the crowds seemed like it would give me the rawest taste of the Chinese national experience.

After a couple of hours of weaving between the onlookers and cowering under likenesses of legendary leaders, I was dizzy with information overload. I think my defenses were down as I headed back towards the subway.

I was mere steps away from the downward stairs that would lead me safely home. Suddenly, a diminutive damsel sidled up to me and asked me where I was from.

She seemed sweet and non-threatening. She had a pudgy but attractive face with a pair of wire-rimmed glasses resting on her nose. She smiled and was keeping stride, so I took the bait. She said her name was Mingming, but I could call her Rose. She was a third-year student at the Beijing Institute of Technology where she studied IT, or so she said.

"Rose" was certainly not the first local to engage me that day. Earlier, for example, a woman with a camera tapped me on the shoulder near Mao's Mausoleum and asked if she could take a picture of me with her teenage son. Feeling rather charmed, I put my arm around the boy and smiled wide.

And so when Rose approached me, I was unsuspecting. After walking for a while, we came to a little northbound street. She asked me where I was going. Nowhere in particular, I answered honestly.

Then she said it, the line that should have sent me running: "I'd really like to practice my English."

Maybe it was my own struggles with Mandarin that made me sympathetic, but for whatever reason, I said OK and followed her down the street. Before too long, our conversation turned to tea.

And look, across the street - why, it's a teahouse! Such a coincidence must be a sign. She asked if I wanted some tea, and since by then she was reeling me in and pulling me to shore, I really had no choice.

We sat at a carved wooden tea table in a beautifully wallpapered room. Our hostess poured us several flavors of tea into tiny cups. She showed us the proper way to hold our cups and the rituals associated with each specific tea - test the aroma of this one, roll the warm cup over your temples with that one. They brought out the biscuits and fruit, and the scam was in full swing.

Of course, at the time I felt I was getting a nice taste of Chinese culture. But then the bill came - almost 400 yuan ($52.6) for a few sips of tea and some snacks we didn't touch. I grudgingly took out my half, but when I looked over at Rose holding her open wallet, I saw only mothballs.

As any tour book would have told me, that's exactly how they do it. But I decided to discover it on my own. That taste of Chinese culture was a bitter pill indeed.

(China Daily 10/16/2007 page20)