2 February 2000
Ruth Neilson

An article in the Guardian (31/1/00) relates the sorry fortune of some rather gullible Chinese businessmen. The businessmen are falling for an old peasant scam in which a sad looking peasant offers them 100 US$ bill, claiming to be unaware of its worth. The businessman, sensing the opportunity to make some money then offers the peasant a little renminbi in return for the bill (far less than it is worth) at which point the peasant proclaims that back at his village he has a whole trunk full of these notes...Of course, the peasant is actually all too aware of the true value of the US dollars which all turn out to be forged.

Do we feel any sympathy for these gullible Chinese business men?

Probably not. But in discussing this Chinese charade, the Guardian ponders whether this is simply another example of the Chinese grabbing the opportunity to get rich quick. In many parts of the world, the Chinese already have a reputation for being quick on the uptake of 'a good deal'. They are noted for speed and turnover rather than skill and craftsmanship in many of their goods. As such these greenback scams could well be appealing to the Chinese delight in getting something for relatively nothing.

However, the issue that intrigues me is the suggestion that this kind of behaviour is essentially Chinese. As the Guardian writer says:

"it is hard to understand why the victims continue to be so gullible. One theory is that in China, where everyone wants to 'get rich first,' people are quicker to delude themselves that they have found a magic way."

But is this not a condition symptomatic of much of the western world, rather than just China? With prize money lotteries becoming more and more popular across the world, the entire human race seems to be reinforcing its desire to receive more and more money for the minimum possible effort. Scams across email are rife with chain emails offering recipients the opportunity to earn money by simply forwarding the email on to as many people as possible. In these cases, rather than gaining financially from the scam, the original senders succeed in blocking bandwidth and causing untold frustration to thousands of email users. Newspaper small ads continue to have the long-standing 'earn  the easy way' offers, all of which are, essentially, a scam. I think that rather than being a Chinese fault, this greed manifests itself in countries world wide.

It is unclear from the Guardian's article whether the author is admiring the peasants' cheek, or bemoaning the business men's stupidity, but perhaps the writer should have indicated that this is not limited to people who are Chinese. In this increasingly socially corrupt world, is it fair to single out the Chinese in this way once again? It seems to me that perhaps we are all starting to see the world through green-tinted lenses.