Superstar

When I found out that my favorite Chinese girl band, S.H.E., would be performing in Jinan, I knew I had to get tickets. When I found out that a boy band known as much for their good looks as for their music would be performing as well, it was the icing on the cake.

Convincing my friends that they should come with me to the concert was easy. Getting tickets was much more difficult. I quickly learned that procuring tickets is a three-step process.

1) Find a scalper. Ticket scalping is common and widely accepted by all branches of law enforcement. When we got to the stadium where the concert was being held, about half of the people milling around outside were shifty looking men who would sidle up to us, pretend to be intensely interested in something in the distance, then surreptitiously flash a few tickets in their jacket pockets.

2) Haggle. Once we expressed some interest in the tickets, the seller would say a number, representing the price. My friend would respond with a harsh cackle, or a snort, then she too would present to be interested in something off in the distance. The seller would then say, "well, how much do you want it for?" My friend would then say a ridiculously low number, at which point it was the seller's turn to snort. This would go back and forth a few times, until either one of the parties walked away in disgust, or a price was agreed upon.

3) Get the tickets. We were a rather large group (7), so sometimes the seller wouldn't have all of the tickets on his person. In these cases, he would need to go "to the back" or to get them "from a friend". This tended to make us a bit suspicious, so we would usually send two or three people with him, to make sure he didn't try any funny business. Sure enough, more often than not, the tickets would not actually exist. Once, the seller actually ran away from us right before handing over the tickets. (And I mean full on Forrest Gump type running.) So this part of the process was not as easy as it might sound.

It took us about an hour and a half to successfully get tickets, and another fifteen minutes to find the entrance to the stadium. At this point, the concert had already begun and we were anxious to get inside and join in the fun. In true Chinese fashion, however, we were stopped by the security guards on our way in. Why? Because the tickets we spent so much time and effort purchasing turned out to be fake. Luckily, the security guard felt sorry for us, especially "the really excited foreigner", and let us in anyway.