If you’re a tourist or even just look like one, you may find your stroll through the market a little less comfortable than you’d hoped. It may be that you’ll take on an unrequested new “friend” who just wants to show you around -- even if you already know your way around -- even if you tell him to get the heck away from you. It may be nothing, but be on guard, this guide may be less friendly than you think.
There’s never a shortage of young and old men hanging out in popular tourist spots just itching for the chance to be your unsanctioned and uninvited tour guide for the day. Heck, they’ll even work for free if you let them, but pause right there a minute. Nothing is free in this world, right? Right, nothing is free; so what’s the catch?
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I’ve heard about this and I’ve experienced it myself so I feel I can safely speak with authority. These kindly tour guides who will work for you for absolutely no charge whatsoever, make all their money -- and quite a bit of it I’d like to add -- from the merchants who are about to make their own killing off of you.
My first such guide was Ben-Ben, a retired engineer I met near the famous Mid-Lake Pavilion Teahouse. He worked for me a whole day and asked nothing in return, though I paid him out of predictable guilt. I did not pay him, however, until after I had bought him lunch, purchased pearls in an out-of-the-way gem shop, bought tea I later learned cost far too much, paid triple for my bootleg DVDs and ten times what I should have for a knock-off watch… Yes, I realized after the fact that he made very good money that day by simply telling his merchant friends to kick him some of the difference.
If you have a decent guide book, save yourself the trouble, headache and outlandish premium pricing and wish your would-be tour guide well on his way. Tell him you live in town and work for General Motors and that you are actually a local. He’ll believe you and he’ll leave you alone.
I’m sure he’s a nice enough guy, but you just don’t need that sort of parasite hanging off of you. If you’re out on your own it’s because you wanted to be on your own, not to invite a rip off artist like him to make a king’s ransom off the one thing you don’t yet know about trusting strangers.
