Been to Beijing three times and get wiser with every trip.

My tea ceremony was included as part of a tour to somewhere - Summer Palace I think and cost not a lot. It was carried out very professionally by a lovely looking chinese girl - they always seem to use the pretty ones and the tea was indeed delicious, anyway after about an hour of trying out all these teas I started thinking what the sting in the tail would be? All became apparent when they told us we could indeed buy tea for some some very highly inflated price.There were no takers as expected in our small group,after trying to talk the price down they refused to budge so still no sale, surely if they sold it at a reasonable price they would sell more?

Once on my own I was walking in the shopping area at Wangfujing when two "art" students came up to me and started chatting - alarm bells were already ringing - they were quite enchanting and offered to show me their art work which was on sale to help them buy more art materials.Having time on my side I decided to go with them to the college round the corner and on entering a room was introduced to their "professor" who nodded briefly and got on with whatever he was doing.
The girls proceeded to show me all sorts of watercolours of birds and flowers and when I said that they were too expensive ( my excuse of getting out of buying) they said no problem we have cheaper ones and proceeded to bring out more and more of them.
After about half an hour I was feeling fed up and just wanted to get out so I just said "look I have no money on me as it is back at the hotel". They were now showing signs of desparation and consulted with the now not so friendly looking professor - no problem the girls informed me we shall come back with you to your hotel for the money.Well that was it my patience had now gone so I got up grabbed my jacket and walked out with them tugging at my arm following me into the street and pleading me to buy something.
I felt really uncomfortable about the whole episode as I realised the "professor" was behind the whole thing and probably gave the girls a hard time for not getting a sale.
The next day I saw them again on the same street and they were going to approach me when they suddeny realised who I was.

Two years later on another visit with my wife the same thing was still going on despite the authorities saying they were going to do something about it.