Pengci


Pèngcí is the practice of crooks placing ostensibly expensive, fragile items in places where they may easily be knocked over, allowing them to collect damages when the items are damaged. Recently, pengci has been expanded to include a predominantly Chinese crime where scammers feign injury in traffic accidents in order to extort money from drivers.
The term has been extended to describe “broken porcelain” diplomacy, in which any foreign criticism of the Chinese government, or its strategic issues, is met with manufactured outrage, shattering the "porcelain of diplomacy" and fanning popular anger.
The melon drop scam in the western world is similar to Pengci which originally targeted Japanese tourists due to the high price of watermelon in Japan. The scammer will bump or cause the mark to bump into them causing the scammer to drop a watermelon. The scammer may then receive upwards of $100 for "compensation".