Shanghai - Day 7

Apr 30, 2014

Day 7

Today was the last day of the tour. Just before our journey to Shanghai, we stopped at the "Tianmai Jade Jewelry Expo Center." I thought it was "suspicious" that our tour guide said that we have the option of going inside or not and that he would not force us to go in. I did not want to go in since I already know that this was another shopping stop. BUT, the other members in our group was like "well, why not, let's go." OMG. My mother went along with them, so I had no choice but to enter too.

It was time for the "ELABORATE SCAM." Guys, be careful of the Tianmai Jade Jewelry Center, they are serious scammers.

When you enter the shop, it looks very normal with a large jade statue outside in the lobby. A salesperson will bring you inside and introduce you to jade, the history, how to differentiate the good jade with the bad, etc. Later, she will bring you to look at some jade in the store but it was "odd" how there were barely ANY salespeople on that floor, only one at every station. Later, the saleslady brought us down to a secret room? we had to walk across the shopping area and then down the stairs and through a very huge door to that room. That room had the good quality jade in cases (like how they showcase antiques at the museum) and there was a very long wooden table with many seats surrounding it (like a meeting room). Then came a couple of sales ladies who asked one of our tour member if they can bring their kids to the playroom. They agreed and the 2 kids were taken to play puzzles in another room.

It was getting creepy. I mean, we walked so far to this room, I was afraid that they would lock us in here. While we sat around the table, another sales lady offered us tea, while the main sales lady (perhaps the manager) introduced us to various pieces of jade, apparently they cost hundreds to thousands of dollars. While she was talking, the "CEO" coincidentally walked into our room. How did we know he was a CEO? Well, when the manager sales lady saw him she bowed and said "I didn't know you were here, etc." I almost burst out laughing, it was so fake. Once he left, she said that he was the "CEO" and that he was the one that sponsored our hotel room in Hangzhou and that if we see him we should thank him. I say after 15 minutes the CEO walked in again, and this time he started talking to us and asked us if we would like to speak to him, and some of our tour members was like "We would love to." I was like "NOOOOOOOOOOOO" in my head. It was then that the "manger sales person" disappeared into the background. The conversation with him about his life took at least 1 hour. It was utterly ridiculous. He said that he was just in Hangzhou for 1 day and he has to leave later that day, and it must be fate they we met so he will give us a present. He said it was made of jade. It was just a circular necklace made of FAKE jade you can find anywhere in China. How is it possible that he can prepare the present so fast and in red envelopes too - are you a psychic?? And then he started showing us some jade sculptures that he said he is currently working on, and some past projects that he worked on too. I mean, if he makes sculptures, I expect some cuts on his hands, but his hand was too smooth. He showed the images to us on his tablet. A CEO with a "NO NAME" tablet. If not Apple, at least a Samsung. It was a great giveaway. After this, he started showing us a briefcases of jades that he "made" but is not selling regardless of how much we offer him. After a while, it was show time. Somehow the CEO started naming prices of the pieces and salespeople came out of the room and started selling jade to us.

Me, my sister and my mom was just sitting at the table chatting. We were not interested in the jades at all. I told my sister about this scam, except the one I read was a bit different. A sales lady came to us and opened a brief case and asked us if we wanted to buy anything and when we said "no," she tried to sell the jade to us anyways. When she finally caught on that we were not interested she moved on to another victim.

My family and I just walked around and then went back out and waited for the rest of the group outside the building. I would say we were here for around 3 hours! THREE HOURS! People were actually shopping inside. I can't believe they cannot tell that they were being played in the palm of their hands. I saw on another blog the picture of the back of the "BOSS," and how odd, the boss aged at least 30 years. How odd indeed. lol. And another blog indicated the jade they bought was actually "quartz."

While some of our tour members were waiting outside for some wandering souls stuck inside the shop, I noticed somebody (a tourist, I assume) wrote a message on the black wall of the building with their fingers since the wall was dusty, so the message was quite clear "IF" you examine the wall a bit. Basically the message was along the lines of "this is a scam shop, the boss is fake," and he/she was swearing at the tour guide and the scammers inside this building. BRAVO to whoever wrote this.

Once we got to Shanghai, we went for lunch. During lunchtime, we were talking to another member who was wearing the large jade Buddha necklace he just bought from the Tianmai shop. We asked him how much he got it for and he said that they told him he can get it for ~$5000CND if he gave the jade buddha that he brought at another shop to them. So basically, it cost him $10,000CND. So sad. He got scammed.

After lunch the tour guide said we have to go for a foot massage. We were all reluctant and asked him if we have to go. He said yes. He brought us to the foot massage room which was just down the hall from our lunchroom. Nobody wanted to go in even though the tour guide said we have to. We were skeptical as to if we had to pay for this one. It was then that the tour guide noticed that we were not budging and said that this is MANDATORY, so we went inside. We had to listen to this doctor take about health while getting our foot massaged. And then they started passing out medications for us to look at and to buy.

scalding hot water with a tea bag

Doctor? talking about health and the feet

Finally, we can explore Shanghai! First stop, Xintiandi, car-free entertainment and shopping area. The restaurants here are expensive! 

Many different restaurants signs- high class

Relatively old buildings with an urban setting

There's not much to do here other than eating and perhaps shopping for expensive things. 

The next stop was Chenghuang temple old street. This is a very busy shopping area and especially full of tourists. There were lots of food stalls. The buildings are gorgeous!  And this place is very very big, I mean, you can spend a good couple of hours here. We only had 1 hour to look at stuff. Too less time.

 This building was surrounded by water.

These charms are sooo CUTE! 

Our final destination was to have dinner on a cruise ship and to enjoy the Shanghai night view. During dinner, there was also a performance from a woman playing a ancient Chinese stringed instrument. 

The cruise ship that we got on.

And after this was our final night of the tour. On our way to the hotel, our tour guide brought up a real story that had happened when he was a tour guide. Basically one of the tour member, a woman, ate something from the a street vendor and she had a stomach ache on the tour bus, but they are unable to let her out to go to the washroom since they were on the highway and they won't reach their destination for quite a while. The woman really had to go to the washroom but there was no toilet on the tour bus, so she had to go in a bucket on the stairs in the front of the bus beside the bus driver. So basically the whole tour bus had to listen to her have diarrhea and smell her poop. How embarrassing.

As we approached the hotel, the tour guide told us that we should thank the bus driver for driving us and helping us unload our luggage by giving him tips. I was like "WTF." And he went on and on about tips till we got to the hotel. OMG. My mother gave the bus driver 100RMB and the tour guide an additional $50USD. I mean, he gets $10USD in tips from each member of the tour every single day so imagine how much money he gets at the end of the tour. And we're talking about USD. ~25 members x $10 USD/day + commission from shopping stops. Argh. The tour guide and his pity talk - he said that the driver doesn't get paid. Yea, right, if he doesn't get paid he wouldn't even do this job.

Our hotel for the night was Renaissance Yangtze Shanghai Hotel.

Hmm. The room was kinda small also, but at least the bed is comfy and the room is clean and modern.