Watch Out! Pedestrian District

Most of the cities in China now have the pedestrian district. That is the motorcars road is blocked so the pedestrian can freely walk in the middle-of-the-road. Usually both sides of the road are with many different kinds of shops and shopping centers. Usually there will be many people gather around the pedestrian district during Saturday and Sunday. You can find food; drinks and some local entertainment there. Sometimes there are fashion shows or other charity shows performed. This is also one of the symbol of the city landmark. there will be many people from other China cities walking around the street too.
Since there are many tourist and like us the Hong Kong people will love to take a walk there, local pickpocket parties are there too. (Usually three people a team)
And sometime people will come to you and say that they have antiques with good bargain prices.
Some people will approach you and ask you whether you would like to change RMB (Chinese money) with good rate.
Some pretty young girls will approach you and ask you to give them some money to buy food because they came from other China city and they have no money to buy food. (When you take a deep look on their dressings, you can easily find that this is a lie).
If you are a single man walking there, you have to be very careful when one or two beautiful girls approach to you and say that they can bring you to some places for a drink or singing Karaok. Or a man approach to you and say that he can introduces beautiful girls to you as your companion. You better watch out! This certainly is a trap! Don’t be mislead by their beauty!
First, they know that you are a traveler from other countries by the way you dress. Second, they will judge you by what you are wearing and know that whether you have money or not. Third, they will make sure you don’t have local people accompanying you. Therefore they can approach to you and testing you whether you are greedy or not by their offerings such as best buy products or you want a female friend or not.
What if you like adventure trip and follow the unknown person?

The results are:
1. You will still pay a much higher prices for the fake antiques.

2. You will get fake money when you exchange your currency with them.

3. You will have to pay for RMB3,000 a cup of coke per person in the
place that pretty girls bring you to their suggested singing place.

4. If you follow the pretty girls to their place. You might end up have to pay
for a large sum of money before you can leave. Because you can hardly explain
to the Chinese Policeman that what is the reason that you are with the girl
and at her place.

5. Also there might be some men are waiting for you when you enter the girl’s
apartment. They will tie you up and take all your money and belongings.

6. Sometime the girl will give you a cup of water or some soft drinks. After you
drink the water or soft drinks you will find dizzy and fainted. And you will
regret a lots when you wake up! Then one day, you might see yourself naked in
youtube!

If the above mentioned happen and you don’t speak Mandarin, you better ask the Police Officer (Gong An) to call back to your staying Hotel and ask for the translator to do the explanation for you.
Please always remember – “Don’t go out without your staying Hotel’s telephone numbers”!!!

In view of this, the police (Gong An) has arrange the men or women police driving the energy saving golf cars up and down the pedestrian district. Objective is to prevent any crime arise and help people easily even if you are asking location direction. However, there is no “English” indicated this is a mini Police car.

Planning your Trip to China 5

10. Credit Cards: Foreign major credit cards are accepted nowadays in most of the China cities. The most popular credit are Visa and Mastercard. Other credit cards such as American Express, Diners Club, JCB, Federal and Million are not so common. However, there are many restaurants and shops do not accept credit cards including some of the two and three stars hotels. Therefore you have to check first or else you have to carry a large sum of money.

Please note that you can use your credit cards for withdrawing money from your hotel, banks and ATM machines.

Hotel cash advance: Some of the 4 and 5 stars hotels allow customers cash advance in their hotels for emergency usage. There will be 5% to 10% handling charges on your cash advance amount. Maximum cash advance amount is RMB2,000 per day.
If you are a member of some hotels, you can cash advance once without any handling charges.

Important point to note: please check the exact cash RMB amount that you receive from the hotel cashier. If possible, please request the cashier to use their money detector machine to scan the RMB first. Just to prevent receive fake money notes.

I have experienced twice that during the staying in one of the 5 stars hotel group in different cities, two times that I received one fake RMB hundred dollar note. I didn’t notice until I deposited the money in the bank. The bank told me that they have to forfeit the one hundred dollar fake note and told me to sign a note. So be careful!

Bank cash advance: For the time being, as I know, there are only two Banks - Bank of China and Chinese Commercial Bank accept foreign credit cards cash advanve. Usually you have to go to the local city main bank to do the transaction. The bank will also charge you 5% for the handling fee of you cash advance amount with your credit card. You can cash advance RMB20,000 maximum. However if you use American Express credit card, there will be no handling fee for your cash advance amount RMB5,000.

ATM cash advance: There are many ATM machines but you have to know which bank’s ATM machines with the international credit cards logo that can accept your credit cards cash advance. Visa and Mastercard can easily find the ATM machines. Only the Bank of China carries the American Express credit card ATM. (American Express really needs to expand their service market strategy)

Point to note: When you take your money from the ATM machine, please spread the taken money and show the money upon the ATM machine with an inner camera len area. These can protect you from robbing as evidence.

In China people use to carry domestic credit cards such as Visa and Mastercard. However, many domestic bank issue the credit card credit limit are based on the people cash deposit amount in the bank.

11. Traveler’s Cheque: can be used in Banks (Bank of China and Chinese Commercial Bank only) and Hotels in China.