Chinese Scams: “Can You Buy Me Dinner?”

Hello, everyone. Still here in Guangzhou for the time being. I ran into another one of the Chinese scams that people try to run on foreigners here. This is the same one that I ran into back in Xi’an a couple of years ago too.

Beware of Chinese Scams

The way that this scam works is that a Chinese person, probably a woman (all three times that they tried to pull it on me it has been women) will approach you, the foreigner, on the street. They will give you a sob story about how they have lost their money, run out of money, or have had their money stolen. They will then ask you to buy them dinner from the kindness of your heart.

When somebody wants something from you, they are willing to be kind. Before you wanted to scam me, I was heigui (黑鬼), but now that you can cheat me out of some cash, I am a nice, kind foreign friend. Knowing this, I made a smart aleck remark this time for the girl to ask one of the Whites that her people worship. She supposedly didn’t understand.

It is a real pity that my retorts often go over the heads of the locals here. It may be for the better though, as I’d probably be catching ass-whippings from overwhelming numbers of angry Chinese people that don’t give a fuck about a man running up into a kindergarten and stabbing everyone in sight, but see it as the end of the world if a foreigner snaps at someone trying to screw them over. Pisses them off tenfold when said foreigner is a Black man.

She told me that she would be able to pay me back tomorrow (that is another part of the scam) and that she needed to get back to the airport in order to wait for her father. I told her about the time that I ran out of money in this very city (although it was the Panyu District back then) and had to sleep in a KFC. Since it would only be one night, she could bear it. Otherwise, she could come to my hotel room and get those wallz knocked out in exchange for my kindness.

Once again, she didn’t understand my crude and sarcastic humor. Now she was asking for a hundred RMB to take the train back to her hometown. I thought that she was going to head back to the airport to wait for her father, who would have paid me had I lent her the money.

Bill Duke's famous line applies to Chinese scams

At Least Get Your Story Right if You’re Trying to Pull Chinese Scams on Me!

Be careful out there, fellows. A pretty face can hide a dangerous mind. Not all dangerous minds are sharp though, as illustrated by tonight’s encounter. As always, protect yourselves at all times!

This blog post was written on January 16, 2016, Beijing Time.