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Have some China rage to unleash that doesn't fit anywhere else on ChinaRant?  Post it here and if it kicks some serious ass, then we'll slap it on the front page of our site.  Take a quick look at the Rules of Engagment before blasting away. 

Roofied at Bar Rouge

This is a very scary and very real account of what happened to a friend of mine at Bar Rouge in Shanghai. I’ve heard similar stories in Beijing and one can only surmise that Rohypnol is creeping its way into China’s bar scene. Hope this posting will encourage people to be extra careful at bars and make sure to stick close to your friends!

(Below posting is submitted on behalf of a contributor)

It was just what we had planned: a table out on the terrace with view a across the Huangpu river and down the Bund, hanging out, catching up and sipping on our drinks. Inside, the bar was packed with people; locals, expats and tourists alike, having a fantastic time, obligingly being awed by the bar tender's habit of periodically setting the bar on fire. As the music got louder, my friends and I decided to head in to do some dancing, not all that easy with how many people were in the bar, but we managed nonetheless. I'm sure we chatted to people, people we didn't know. But we're responsible girls and know about protecting our drinks and watching out for our friends, and this wasn't our first time out, so we weren't worried. I'm assume the rest of the night went wonderfully for everyone else in the bar, I'm not sure though, because I don't remember a thing.

From standing by the bar chatting to my friend, to waking up in my hotel room bed the next morning with my friends worriedly watching over me, I remember nothing. The story, according to my friends, who I was lucky to have with me that night, is that I went from being fine, to excusing myself to go to the bathroom, to being slumped over the sink in the bathroom, in a matter of minutes. I was with girls who've known me for years, people who knew that my sudden inability to move, or even hold my own head up, was not a result of alcohol.  Someone had drugged my drink.

According to my friends, they had to have me carried out the bar, and into a waiting taxi. Worried that something was really wrong with me, they asked the cab driver to take us to the nearest hospital. The hospital was suspicious of what was going on, and decided to call the police, who in turn called the manager of the bar. The doctors, the police and the manager all insisted to my very panicked friend that I was simply drunk, clearly assuming that I was the type of girl who has had her stomach pumped on numerous different occasions (I haven't, I've never even passed out from too much alcohol before). Eventually, the manager realised that my friends were telling the truth and that my state was a result of someone drugging my drink in his high-end bar, not a result of 'a few too many'. He was kind enough to stay with my friends till they all decided that it would be okay to take me back to the hotel, and he paid the hospital for their services.

The next morning at the hotel, relieved that I was up and actually functioning normally, my friends recounted the story to me. Filling me in on the entire night and everything I couldn't remember. Needless to say, I was traumatised for the rest of the day, rest of the week even. The scary thing is not the way it turned out (if it had to happen, then I'm glad it happened the way it did), but the way that it could have turned out. I could have been with people who hadn't known me for years, people who would have just assumed that I was drunk, people who would have left me to fend for myself. There was clearly someone in the bar that night who had slipped something into my drink, whether he (or even she) did it just to see what would happen, or if the person actually had a plan of how the evening would progress once I had ingested the drug, who knows. I do know that I wouldn't have been able to stop anything from happening that night, and I probably wouldn't have remembered well enough to do anything about it after.

This happened at one of the nicest bars in Shanghai, to a girl who was clearly there in a group that was looking out for one another, so it could happen to anyone, anywhere. If you see a really drunken girl the next time you are out, maybe stop to think about whether she really is just drunk, or its something worse than that. 

How to check fake RMB

Thanks to this posting for the below picture. Supposedly, "Checking the black vertical line is really black is a good idea, and a quick scratch of Mao's jacket (which should be slightly ribbed) is usually enough." The top one is fake.

Beware: Armed "Taxi Driver" On the Loose in Beijing

(Posted on behalf of a contributor.  Have a rant? Send us yours here)

This is a story I heard the weekend before the May holidays, and happened to a friend of a co-worker who I'll call "Andy". 

It was the first time I had ever met the guy, as he was just passing through town and I was taking him out as a favour to my colleague, but judging by how shaken he looked when he told me about it I'm inclined to believe that it was true.  The night before we met up, Andy had gone out to Kai club with a bunch of Australians from the hostel he was staying at, and had naturally had too much to drink.  Over the course of the evening he lost the others, and as he stumbled outside - he couldn't remember exactly where he was at this point, as he was inebriated in addition to being clueless about the city geography - he hailed what he swears looked like an official taxi.  It had the meter in the window and everything. 

Hoaxed in Hefei

I received the below picture in an email the other day and was going to post something about a desperate foreigner trying to score some Anhui booty. As you can see in the photo, the first section describes his current situation as a recently divorced Canadian while the second part talks about his “desire” for a Mrs. “right” in the city of HeFei.

After a little more research it seems that, the whole thing was actually a scam.

ChinaPoo.com

Thanks to a contributor for referring the site: www.chinapoo.com . Although you may think this is a site dedicated to public squats in various locations in China, you will be sadly disappointed. The budding entrepenuer who created this site with the mission to “让网络普及全中国” needs a refresher in ping ying. Instead of using the proper “pu” for puji, he/she went with the more literal “poo” translation. Makes for a good rainy Tuesday laugh.

As 2008 Olympics Approach, Beijing Tries To Teach Some Manners

A interesting article from Cox Newspapers with a mention of ChinaRant. Some excellent tidbits from the article:

1. Many Chinese refuse to swallow their spit because they believe mucus is poisonous, said Sha Lianxiang, a psychologist at the Humanistic Olympics Studies Center. "When I was young my parents told me that if I swallowed my spit it would turn into a worm in my stomach," she said.

2. Beijing also has employed 1,500 "civilized bus-riding" supervisors to discourage crowding and fighting at bus stops, the official Xinhua news agency reported. The city has also hired 3,180 workers to stop pedestrians and cyclists from crossing streets against the light and will increase the number to more than 5,000 by 2008, according to local media.

3. In 2003 the Beijing government began providing dog owners with yearlong supplies of plastic bags and "apparatuses to collect their fecal matter," said Sha, the Humanistic Olympics Studies Center psychologist.

Contest: Battle of the Rants

To celebrate ChinaRant’s one year birthday, we are going to be running our very first contest sponsored by the site Made to Order (MTO123.com).

Over the next couple of weeks, post your best rant (within this thread) related to buying stuff in China. This can be DVDs, fake watches, leather man bags, nylon socks or whatever!

The author of the best rant will win his or her very own “我不要DVD!” t-shirt  which can be proudly worn while strolling the streets of China.  Let the rants begin…happy BDAY ChinaRant!

Tourist Scams

(Click here for original posting.  Have a rant? Send us yours here)

Here's a very common scam thats happened a few times to people I know (I've worked as a tour guide so I've seen quite a few scams):

Foreign tourists visiting Beijing always visit the same places; eg forbidden city, the summer palace, tiantan park etc.

Usually, you cant park or stop your car anywhere near the entrance to these places, so you always have to walk for a while to actually get to the entrance. during this time, people are always approached by waidiren trying to sell everything imaginable but usually cheap-looking souvenirs.

one common scam goes like this:

stupid foreign tourist decides to buy some trinket off one of these people. a price is agreed upon, the foreigner hands over a 100 Yuan note and receives change and trinket. after w minute or so, the seller comes running claiming the 100 Yuan note he/she received is fake and demands a new one. the stupid tourist, surprised, hands over a new 100 Yuan note and gets his "old" note back. of course, the note he gets is fake but he/she doesnt realize this. by now, the stupid tourist has just lost 200 "real" Yuan buying postcards or whatever worth 2 kuai.

China Rant Trolls

An Internet "troll" is a person who delights in sowing discord on the Internet. He (and it is usually he) tries to start arguments and upset people.

Trolls are utterly impervious to criticism (constructive or otherwise). You cannot negotiate with them; you cannot cause them to feel shame or compassion; you cannot reason with them. They cannot be made to feel remorse. For some reason, trolls do not feel they are bound by the rules of courtesy or social responsibility.

Trapped in Taiyuan

Here is a totally dramatized account of an American from Littlerock that took a wrong flight from Hong Kong and ended up in Tai Yuan.  There are some parts that are pretty funny. Here is one of my favorite quotes:

“In between, Nelson said he faced danger and indignity, injuring his legs and back leaping out of the way of a reckless car and enduring the spit that some Chinese hurled his way.”

Click here for full story