Beijing’s promise to keep the highly pressurized Olympics ticket purchase process on the up-and-up seems to have gone aground on the shores of economic reality. From TIME’s China blog:
In China having connections can make all the difference. But when the first-stage ticket sales plan for the 2008 Olympics was announced earlier this year, the Beijing Organizing Committee for the Olympics –or the vaguely sinister-sounding BOCOG— vowed to give everyone an equal chance: tickets would be sold by public lottery, and there would be no free tickets, staff tickets, discounted tickets or any of the other euphemisms for funneling the best seats to the rich and powerful.
But even in the case of the hallowed Olympics, such good intentions have apparently run afoul of the country’s “to get rich is glorious” mentality. [Full Text]
[Image: A model displays an 2008 Olympics ticket application form at a press conference announcing the start of ticket sales in April, 2007, from China.org.cn]
