I’ve managed to get by well enough with my Chinese so far, although that’s largely because in Shanghai they’re used to foreigners, and the fact that I can speak any at all seems to come as a surprise. I’ve developed a fondness for people who tell me prices in Chinese straight away rather than using English or pointing to a calculator (not that I blame the others, who are just trying to be helpful). But I’m not sure that repeatedly saying “I want that one” to food stall owners and “I don’t want anything” to people selling fake watches was helping my Chinese awfully much. I wanted to have a proper conversation. In Shanghai, I had two… Both with people trying to scam me in exactly the same way. There’s a popular scam where young English-student type people approach foreigners and invite them to come along to a ‘tea ceremony’, which then ends up costing a fortune and turning ugly if you don’t pay, etc. So popular that there are signs up about it in hotels everywhere, and yet it’s still happening, so they must be having some success. I was approached by a couple of young people in the People’s Square in Shanghai saying “Hello“， but after I replied in Chinese they went along with it. They were very accommodating (which, I guess, is the point). We talked for about ten minutes, and I was pretty thrilled about having this long conversation in Chinese, before they brought up the tea house thing. Oh. Even then, actually, I wasn’t *entirely* convinced it was the scam. They did seem so terribly friendly. I wasn’t stupid enough to consider going along, but I did think, you know, if they’re not scammers, I wish they’d picked something other than tea. But I politely declined, and walked away. Oddly, they didn’t press it at all and directed me to where I was going (the Shanghai museum). So I walked off, wondering if it was a scam or just an odd coincidence, and within five minutes I was approached by another pair of people and the same scenario played out again. Yeah, okay. Anyway, I was pretty happy about all this, because it was great practice for my Chinese. So until yesterday, the longest conversations I’d had in Mandarin in China were with a group of scammers. Which was a little disheartening. But yesterday, on the long-distance bus to Ningbo, I met a couple of people and spent something like 40 minutes to an hour speaking Chinese (with occasional help from one of them whose English was better than my Chinese, but not by too much). One woman was from Harbin, where I’m eventually going, which was quite cool, although I talked more to the other one. There was also a British girl sitting next to one of the Chinese women, who didn’t speak any Chinese, so I felt a bit guilty. But I had a chat to her later on, after we got off the bus… As it turns out, she was an exchange student heading to the University where my Chinese friend in Ningbo goes. Go figure. Oh, and speaking of small world things, I heard a middle-aged couple speaking in Italian on the Subway in Shanghai. I thought of saying something, but I was too slow untangling my Italian from my Mandarin, and I probably would have made a fool of myself with something like “你 sei Italiano 吗？” That’s all for now. I’m not used to writing blog posts in a hurry, but being in China, I’m in the odd position of actually having things to do! It’s not too bad at all. Off to meet my friend and see some more of Ningbo. Oh, actually, one more thing before I forget, because it was the kind of thing worth writing about. On the way home to my hotel last night, my crazy taxi driver managed to annoy an even crazier pair of Chinese guys in an SUV, who parked in front of him and got out to yell for a little bit, and at one point try to punch him through the window. Which was, you know, something. I just sort of sat there pretty calmly, because I guess I figured it was relatively normal, although now that I think about it being a little scared wouldn’t have been entirely out of place. Anyway, they went away after a little bit, and we drove on home, with the taxi driver talking to me rapidly in what I’m *fairly* sure wasn’t Mandarin, but one way or another, I couldn’t understand a word, though he clearly expected me too. Oh well. We got to the hotel okay, and the whole 35 minute trip cost the equivalent of about 3 dollars. That’s China.