At 7 am in an old house, we are trying to keep a conversation going with granny. We get up too early and are not quite ourselves. Granny offers us boiled corns and a cigarette to the only young man among us.

As she puffs contentedly, she brings out a photo album. "This is XXX, do you know him? He's a star. They were down here shooting a film. He was really sweet and called me 'granny' all day."

We thumb through the album with renewed interest. But the big brother - the granny's son - hurries in and with a serious look commands: "Quiet!" Then he draws back the curtains and peeks out.

All of us duck for cover - behind the door, the curtains, and under the table. Only granny doesn't panic. She looks at her son meaningfully. He gets the message and marches out. A few minutes later, he is back smiling: "It's all clear! The guards have gone."

This was one act in a new drama that I starred in. The cast: Granny and Big Brother (played by a local mother and her son), six heroes (played by me and five white-collar friends, trying to be frugal against those out to monopolize the tourist market).

The story took place last National Holiday. My friends and I visited Xitang near Shanghai. There were simply too many tourists. So we turned to Wuzhen (Dark Town), another old town featuring ancient buildings with white walls, black tiles and wooden carved doors and windows along narrow rivers.

We heard that the town has been turned into a park, and the entrance fee was 60 yuan ($8.30). We arrived at dusk and there were barely any lights in the Dark Town. But the guards said we had to buy tickets before we could find a lodge inside.

In the deepening darkness, a torch came nearer. A man asked if we were looking for a place to spend the night. We followed him into a residential area outside the town. On the second floor, we found ourselves in a two-bedroom apartment. One of the bedrooms had a wedding photo on the wall.

The young couple had moved to their small restaurant downstairs and rented the apartment to tourists. During dinner, the restaurateur/landlord told us that the park was open for tourists from 8 am to 5 pm, which was long enough for most tourists who managed to reach every corner of the town in a few hours.

The man said he could "smuggle" us into the town before 6 am. We could hide in his mother's house until most tourists show up after 8 am. Then the guards of the tourist company wouldn't know if we had bought the tickets.

The next morning, after the guards passed by and the alarm went off, we heaved a sigh of relief. Granny complained that the tourist company didn't allow local residents to sell even one corn by themselves.

When we were ready to leave, she said: "It's 10 yuan ($1.40) for bringing each of you into the town, and 2 yuan ($0.30) for a corn - in total, 72 yuan ($10)."

Not a bad deal but, what else can we expect from this commercialized world?

The story first appeared in Southern People's Weekly

(China Daily 04/30/2008 page20)