Not everyone wants to go to witness the 2008 Beijing Olympic Summer Games Opening Ceremony when he or she has got the ticket. Some prefer to sell it at a much higher price on auction sites like Taobao.com (China’s eBay, owned by Alibaba and powered by Yahoo!), even though the they know the resale of the microchip-embedded Olympic tickets is illegal.

In one such auction, the seller has put up his Category A (best seating) Olympic Opening Ceremony ticket for sale on Taobao. The original price of this much coveted ticket is 5000 yuan ($671) but he has placed a BIN (Buy-It-Now or 涓�鍙ｄ环) for 20 0000 yuan ($26 840), 40 times the original value! When interviewed, he replied he could buy a pretty nice house if his ticket was sold.

Most Chinese entertainment or sports events attract a throng of touts or scalpers, known locally as “yellow bulls” (榛勭墰), trying to sell on tickets.

If holders of such precious tickets can improve their living conditions tremendously after selling their tickets, I don’t see it as anything bad but rather, it is their Ticket to a New Life.

Via Yahoo