Stories

Scam Artists Profit Off Teenage Girl’s Time Travel Fantasy

by on Wednesday, February 15, 2012 75 comments comments

Chinese time travel television drama.

In modern China, few television tropes have been as popular as dramas featuring time travel to ancient dynasties and simpler days – cultivating legions of naive escapist youth longing to live out the fantasy they witness on screen.  Unfortunately for one young teen, the pursuit of her fantasy led her directly into the clutches of scammers.

This particular teen, Xiao Dan, was especially enthralled with traveling back to the Qing and Tang Dynasties and was therefore quite pleased with herself when she managed to make contact with an “Immortal Sister” on the internet who claimed she could help.  Over a few days of chatting online, Xiao Dan discovered that this Immortal Sister happened to know an “expert” in time travel and would be willing to help Xiao Dan realize her dreams – for a nominal fee, of course.

Later, the two met in person, and discussed the matter of paying for the time travel “technology.”  Xiao Dan only had 1,800RMB but Immortal Sister claimed it would be enough for one trip, and eagerly arranged the “departure” date.

The day of the departure arrived, and Xiao Dan excitedly arrived at the predetermined location of the-middle-of-nowhere to meet with a complete stranger she met on the internet and their time-traveling-expert accomplice.  Completely disregarding all common sense, Xiao Dan then drank the wine they claimed would put her to sleep and transport her back in time. Upon time traveling a few hours into the future, a drugged and dazed Xiao Dan eventually woke up alone and mysteriously absent her modern-day 1,800RMB and cellphone.

It would be hilarious to say Xiao Dan wandered the countryside living out her fantasy and marveling at the similarities between the Qing Dynasty and modern day, but she wizened up and reported her robbery to the police – presumably then returning home to begin saving up for a DeLorean.

Source: iFeng

  • jiayi

    Okay…

    • jiayi

      Hur hur I got the sofa. Unfortunately it only time travels back to 1985.

      • lonetrey

        Ahahaha, better start searching for a spot to get struck by lightning by

  • Mark

    “presumably then returning home to begin saving up for a DeLorean.” haha

    • http://www.wtchina.freeforums.org Elijah

      The whole article was a wicked burn on a foolish girl, but the DeLorean bit made me cringe, cause I could feel the acid sizzling the flesh…

      TL:DR Epically sick burn!!!

      Poor girl lost her money, but a fool and her man are soon parted. Live and learn.

      • http://www.wtchina.freeforums.org Elijah

        Fuck, I meant money…

        But I suppose in china, it’s pretty much the same thing.

        • notalocalpeople

          that last bit was almost as good as the DeLorean line….

  • DRaY

    WOW…. There are people in tis country that gullible?? Don’t let the NYC old school scammers find out about this treasure trove of simps.
    …but really what is the fascination with travelling back 1000 years? Every time a what a historical movie or documentary I can only imagine how hot, how stink or uncomfortable it must have been to live in those ancient times, but I’m a westerner very accustomed to the modern conveniences and comforts … but for a rural/small town Chinese person it is still not that different … LoL…

    • Boris

      From your posts I got the impression that you actually WERE from 1000 years back in time.

  • 平凡人

    I am indeed surprised that people actually fell for it and believe in those bullshit movies and TV serials. What if everyone believes in Superman?

    • http://candosino.wordpress.com terroir

      Hey. Chinese people can fly. It’s a fact as reiterated in the ancient art of wire fu.

    • kev

      They also believe they have 5000 years of history. a culture and something worthwhile to add to the global community.
      Crazy eh?

      • simon

        last time i checked, it was still true.

        • Bruce Tutty

          Really, you checked it all?…impressive!

          • simon

            not really, seems you are pretty gullible.

        • The Dude

          4,100 years.

          Not 5000.

          That would be Egypt, who really do have a verifiable 5000 years of history. As opposed to hearsay based on writings written around 100AD.

          • donscarletti

            Well, written history in China really dates back to mid Shang dynasty when writing was invented, only 3,200 years ago.

            Still a lot longer than most of Europe, the Americas and anywhere else in East Asia.

          • The Dude

            Fuck!

            Ya, you’re right… you know I’d been adding years on just to keep the Chinese happy! Help them save face a bit, then I’d forgotten I was doing that.

            3,200 is a big loss of face compared to 5,000 down to 4,200. It just goes to show, if you say it enough it really does become true (in your own head).

  • http://www.qq.com/1325279774 Kedafu

    Song of the Article

    The Power of Love
    -Huey Lewis and the News

    http://v.youku.com/v_show/id_XMjA0MTQ1ODgw.html

    Also, I got my ChinaSmack T-shirts in the mail, thanks Fauna!

  • JPAX

    Wow……

    In unrelated and totally factual news!

    Licking my balls will make you rich in the year of the Dragon!

  • blues

    I feel for the girl — I really do.
    But if she was gullible to believe something like that, then I guess the 1.8k RMB would be better off in someone else’s hands.

  • White Thrash

    A nice and grotesque example… Like most of Chinese people never learned to think by themselves… baaaah, baaaah~
    I understand it’s a way to keep the situation under control, but in such extreme cases like this one… I’d rather laugh

  • Mike Check

    poor retarded girl should be institutionalised

  • Ryo

    1800 is cheap for this kind of education la. I hear on the news every other day people get conned out of hundreds of thousands.

    • Mike Check

      In the school of life, that’s called tuition.

  • Appalled@everything

    Might just be that there are a million other young Chinese people out there (not to mention older Chinese people too) who are just as gullible.
    The sheer amount of absolutely preposterous and retarded ‘old wives’ tales’ I have heard in China is kinda mindblowing.

    Anytime my wife starts up on a new ‘My colleague said that her cousin said that if we…..then the baby will definitely be born a boy.”
    To which I quickly interject something like, “- yes but in Australia everyone knows that if you drink the milk from a Koala on a Monday, sleep all day on Tuesday, eat only black Jelly Beans on a Wednesday and on Thursday you feel the baby kicking a lot, it means the baby will not only be born a boy but also have a pouch full of candy.” At which, incredibly, my wife usually says: “Seriously?”

    • simon

      your wife seems pretty stupid, i’m surprised she can speak english.

      • Appalled@everything

        As I too am surprised that you can. ‘English’, you see, has a capital ‘E’, not a lower case ‘e’, indicative of the word being a name and not just a common noun. Cretin.

        Besides, she is no dumber than most Chinese who are just unfortunate in that they are living in a country ruled by people who, for example, have hacked into google to stop its citizens from learning anything. What do you expect?

        I cant expect you to know what I mean though. You can’t even type your own name correctly.

        • PJ

          pwned

          • Bruce Tutty

            There’s a difference between stupidity and ignorance, as demonstrated here.

        • Tommy

          ‘Google’, you see, has a capital ‘G’, not a lower case ‘g’, indicative of the word being a name and not just a common noun.

          • Appalled@everything

            Good point, and well spotted, Tommy. (And the irony is not lost on me I can assure you.)

            But anyway, and more importantly, I was making a point more about ‘Wives’ tales’ in China being so readily accepted and blindly accepted as truth. My point was not to make my own wife appear to be an idiot. Hopefully I didn’t, but perhaps I did, and that was my mistake for sure.

            My point was that I think that it is amazing how many young women follow the word of older women, or ‘more experienced’ women in China and accept their advice and suggestions without question.
            I can understand doing it, hearing something new and accepting it, following along and repeating it later – That is normal human behavior surely, but the stuff that these girls think to be true is incredible.

          • White Thrash

            that’s why pure confucianism just can’t work…
            it’s basically repeating everything the previous generation did, and therefore doesn’t allow any room for evolution…
            once again baaaaa~ baaaa~

          • little barbarian

            Confucious was born in the Spring and Autumn era (chun qiu shi qi), when wars and dissolution of orders and society had been prevalent for at least 100 years, causing endless pains and sufferings. The chaos lasted for another two or three centuries. Consequently most people born at that era were born with desperate eagers for peace and order, which were easily accessible in Zhou Dynasty, the previous centuries before Confucious was born. People at that time could only look up to their previous history and try to find solutions for their problems. Apparantly Confucious saw following the ancestral rules as a remedy for the chaoistic Sping and Autumn era. So there is not much to be blamed about Confucious. It was those people who deliberately follow whatever he said without any second thought that should take the blame.

        • Anne

          Thank you for feeling what appears to be sorry for us that we are dumb and unable to learn anything. I suppose you think of yourself as a sort of savior. Good for you. Thank you for taking pity in your stupid Chinese wife and marrying her. The next time I want to learn anything in China I will keep in mind that I don’t know how to access anything via Proxy sites and therefore must stay ignorant and only marriage to a loser white man will save me.

          • Patrick

            You’re a keeper, what’s your number babe?

          • lxpatterson

            Stupid and ignorant are different, good point!…How could you marry such an ignorant woman!?

          • Ronald

            Don’t be upset when the lid comes off the sewer. They only demonstrate their true nature!

        • simon

          wow, i don’t capitalize my sentences and you become a grammatical nazi. what’s funny is you have a go at your own wife and imply that she is stupid and i simply explicitly state what you implied. don’t have a go at your own wife if you can’t handle it mate (figure of speech).

          • mr. wiener

            Simon.
            The lady in question is his wife. Which means he is allowed to tell anicdotes about how simple minded or even gullible she is[and she of him]. If this is in a bar environment and you respond “Wow your wife is pretty stupid, I’m suprised she can even speak English”. You can probable expect a beer poured over your head or worse a smack in the snout. A little grammar facism is getting off lightly by China smack standards.
            If you go through life explicitly stating what others are implying.E.G:
            “Ha! Ha! non whites are really stupid/dishonest/backward”.
            “Women of this nationality are such sluts!” etc you will quickly become unpopular…Any questions?

        • simon

          “I cant expect you to know what I mean though. You can’t even type your own name correctly.”

          Neither, does it seem, can i expect you to know what you yourself mean.

          • simon

            mr. weiner,

            So you’re saying he is allowed to have a go at his wife’s ignorance to a bunch of strangers on a public forum, what would she think if she saw him post this. Hmm?

          • mr. wiener

            Probably hit the roof…but the point is she is his wife, not yours. Woe betide the fellow who explicitly states what he implies….
            You’re not married are you?

          • donscarletti

            She’s not my wife either, but sometimes I do tell her that I’m wearing a mask to spice up the relationship with some roll play. Usually works.

          • Appalled@everything

            Not that I need to excuse myself to you little lowercase simon, but if you had bothered to read this thread carefully I did express remorse for my earlier comment. I did see the insensitivity of talking about my wife that way and expressed that I knew it was my mistake and as a result, it should have left little doubt about my own understanding of what I had done being wrong. But for you little lowercase simon, I cannot expect even that to make sense. Good luck with trying to understand your own life you cretin.

  • GreenGestalt

    Uh, did the “Time Traveler” use a modern invention, the “Condom” at least?

    I mean, I presume he porked her unless she was a real pooch. And even then, well like a cool Hustler cartoon of a rather non-pretty woman who’d been assaulted crying to the police “And then he blindfolded HIMSELF and raped me!”

  • donscarletti

    1.8k and a phone. Sounds like she got it off pretty easily.

    My first thought was “what woman would call 110 after being raped by Ghengis Kahn?”

  • staylost

    If she had died, she would’ve at least received international recognition in the form of an award.

  • Irvin

    Hey with this many people in the country you gotta expect some crazy shit to happen.

  • Foreign Devil

    Her dream of being a whore. . er comcubine for the Qing Dynasty emporer dashed!@

  • Rick in China

    I’m not totally opposed to scammers. I like the idea of someone getting one over me, only in that I know I’ll learn from it.

    I feel bad for people who target youth, though… or disabled/elderly etc, whoever may have a harder time discerning scam from honesty. I hope these people pay – first, targetting minors on the internet and tricking them into going out into the countryside to ‘drink some wine’ is really, really scary, second, this girls parents need to do a much better job on educating their child on the ways of the world.

    • Bouz

      Yeah, let’s say this was a 1800RMB lesson in Reality 101.
      Hilarious story though.

      • typingfromwork

        She got off lightly. At least she still has both of her kidneys.

        • Appalled@everything

          Or wasn’t sold into the sex trade. She definitely got off easy.

        • little barbarian

          two kidneys….
          hey dude your thoughts are creepier
          anyway thanks for your point

  • http://www.mylaowailove.com 陶陶谈老外

    I hope she didn’t bind her feet in preparation for this journey.

  • typingfromwork

    Where’s the reactions from netizens? Anyway I’m just very surprised she didn’t get sold off to some rural hell, had her legs broken and told to breed and cook for the rest of her life. Upon reflection that experience would probably be closer to actually timetravelling to the ancient past.

  • dim mak

    And that’s why they banned historical dramas featuring time travel.

    But seriously why would anyone want to travel to the Qing dynasty? Shit sucked back then. If you’re an average person, the Song dynasty provides the most affluent pre-modern lifestyle. Just watch out for Mongols.

  • xudi

    I’m laughing so much my belly hurts

  • Dilladonuts

    Well, at least she is alive and maybe leveled up 10 iq points, bringing her grand total to 72.

  • blackflagnation

    there’s a difference between being scammed and being just plain fucking stupid… how gullible can a person be?

    oh, by the way, for 1 million yuan, I can show you how to train your body to shit gold nuggets. you too can be become an instant millionaire

    • Pete of Perth

      I want to shit gold nuggets.

    • jeffli

      me three!
      I wanna shit gold nuggets encased in melamine so they don’t get scratched on the way out of my jade(d) ring.
      lol

  • Regina.

    Hilarious.

  • mp

    I guess. But I’m still trying to figure out how Brother Eight showed up in modern day China, and how could he find Qing Chuan so easily? Very mysterious.

    • anon

      Haha, there’s probably only a handful of people on this site who know what you’re referring to.

  • TomTuttleFromTacoma

    China has teenaged girls dreaming of time travel to the Qing Dynasty; here in the West teen girls wants to date/become vampires.

    Teenaged girls are so stupid.

    • anon

      LOL, that’s true.

    • lxpatterson

      Better than America. Counterstrike told some impressionable teen boys in Columbine they could shoot up a high school and win immortal fame…Survey teens today and 9/10 never even heard of Columbine.

      • Tommy

        Doom. They mostly played Doom. And nothing in a game about killing poorly animated aliens on Mars should have encouraged them to kill their classmates.

  • rollin wit 9′s

    Tsingdao Presents Real Men of Stupidity

    Today we salute you Ms.,… Ms.,… F*ck. We don’t even have a name for anyone with such a level of stupidity.

    I’m sorry audience, we can’t come up with a spot for today’s ad. Our writers are dumbfounded.

    Damn!

    Tsingdao Beer, Tsingdao Brewery Co., Shandong Province

  • jeffli

    I reckon when this silly girl woke up not only was her mobile phone missing but there would have been some suspicious white sticky fluid oozing from “all” her orifices too (especially her earholes)

    If I was the “chinese Doctor who” thats what I’d do haha lol.

    Who said the Chinese don’t like science fiction and steampink …errrrr steampunk.

  • little barbarian

    Obviously she is not only an idiot but also a heartless self-centered girl who ignored the love and care of her parents and friends. She is pathetic. So are many people who don’t have indepent judgements

  • xuedi

    haha, not Xiao Dan, more like ben dan ^^

  • Slughead

    Stupid as hell.

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