One of my best friends in my earlier years had a rule: If either of us feels something is off, the other person should immediately trust them and ask questions later. This was back when we were panhandling for money in Seattle, sleeping outside or on a couch, getting food from dumpsters. Anything could go wrong in a moment.
I still follow that principle: Trust your friend’s gut, and always trust your own gut when you sense a scam, even if speaking up feels awkward. Here’s a story that happened a number of years ago:
My ex (call her Zoe) and I were in Taipei, Taiwan, one of my favorite cities in the world. Both of us had taken Mandarin together in university, and I had spent time in China, so we wanted to explore somewhere new. She was as curious about new countries as I was.
That night, we visited the Huaxi Night Market with another couple from Germany. I can’t for the life of me remember their names. They were perhaps ten years older than us and, like most Germans, spoke perfect English. They had all the newest hiking gear, motivated to explore.
Let me tell you about this market for a moment. It’s renowned for things like turtle testicles, snake-blood wine, gangsters, and prostitution. As soon as I heard snakes, I wanted to go there. It wasn’t hard to convince the others to join me, although a friend warned us: keep your eyes open and your wallets close.
We had just entered when an old, toothless man came up to us. I missed the first interaction, because I was buying some lamb-on-a-stick. But I saw him tell Zoe she was hen piaoliang, meaning pretty. She thanked him and flashed a contagious smile. He walked on.
A minute later, he was back, handing us business cards with some young guy’s face on them. It was clear he had marked us for some kind of sale, but of course we couldn’t tell what. The cards weren’t in English.
He tried to pull us along, but we resisted. We started to get a bad feeling, and ignored him to buy some fish-on-a-stick. (There were lots of delicious things-on-sticks at this market.)
He started some sort of ritual of disappearing and reappearing again and again, wanting us to follow him.
We asked the vendor what the card said. He said something that none of us understood, and then tried again: cha jia. Tea house.
I should mention: Taiwan is one of the warmest, friendliest places I’ve ever come across. I felt safe there and love the people I met.
But, of course, any place in the world has people who are more interested in making money than being kind. I had read earlier about a classic Chinese scam with tea houses. Often, pretty girls target single American men or hippie travellers. You come to the house for an “authentic Chinese experience”. Then you end up with a massive bill that you have to pay - often coming to a hundred or more US dollars.
Apparently this dawned on the Germans at the same time. We all turned, and saw the man about to hand Zoe a cup of tea, produced from nowhere, and Zoe reaching for it… We yelled, “Don’t take it!” with too much force. She started, confused.
I immediately felt bad for shouting, even though I felt that urgency called for it. The man disappeared. We spoke to Zoe, who looked shocked by her friends yelling. She calmed down once we explained the reason. The Germans, who had also been to China, confirmed my stories about the scams.
I wondered if I had overreacted when the man appeared again, without the tea cups. He swatted my arm and pointed.
A small dog was strolling behind me on a leash. He yelled at the dog, which stood between us, as if it would attack me. He acted like he might hit the dog and turned to see my reaction. Of course, the dog freaked out at the man’s yelling and started barking. The owner pulled the dog away and hurried on.
This was another classic scam I had heard of - trying to protect the foreigners from “vicious beasts” in order to make us grateful. I just felt annoyed and sorry for the dog. The man disappeared again, for the last time.
This was all unsettling, but none of us were the kind to dwell on it. We sat down with beer and smoothies and oyster omelets and duck-heart-on-a-stick.
This was the way to relax after a bit of excitement; it was more fun to sit and trade stories. Good food and good company always wins in the end.