As popular as it is in America, baseball is really just starting to grow here in China. Looking at the different events and their original ticket prices, baseball was the cheapest sport to view, yet when watching the games on TV it was one of the events with low crowds. I decided this would be the best event to try to get tickets for- low popularity should mean lots of tickets to be resold! Also, the games were held in Wukesong stadium, not the Bird's Nest, so security probably wouldn't be as tight. My guess was right, as the whole outside of the stadium was filled with people trying to sell off excess tickets! After only
five minutes of searching, I found a hefty guy from Australia who was willing to sell me two tickets to the Cuba vs. Taiwan match for only 500 kuai (thats about $73). Considering he got the tickets for only 30 kuai each, thats a pretty good profit he made! The thing I found halarious was the fact that cops kept walking buy and watching us illegally buy these tickets, but they never once made a move to stop it. Literally dozens of people were buying tickets right in front of them and no one cared! Estee and I were pretty worried about whether or not the tickets would work, since all tickets contained a small electronic scanning chip to prevent scammer from making fake copies, but these tickets scanned just fine and we made it through no problem!So how does an Olympic baseball game compare to an American one? Well for one thing, everything is a lot cheaper than a game at Fenway! I'm not going to lie, I was pretty psyched to
get in at all, and this called for a few beers to celebrate- five beers later and I still spent less than I would for one beer at Fenway (each beer here cost 73 cents). Hot dogs were kinda gross (no buns, just a hot dog on a stick), and the popcorn was kettle corn. There were specific instructions not to use sound makers during the game, but the vendors inside the venue were giving away free
thundersticks to anyone who wanted them. The Chinese also blatantly ignored the signs asking no one to use an umbrella when sitting in the stadium, but luckily that never affected my viewing. Something else I loved was the fact that the attendants were handing out brochures explaining the rules of baseball, but unfortunetly I couldn't get my hands on a copy.Once the game started it was just like any other baseball game, but the Taiwanese played the Cubans pretty tight- the game was only decided on a solo shot in the 7th inning in a 1-0 Cuban
victory. The Chinese needed help for the most part on when to cheer, but the sound system did a good job with that. There were a few cheering sections being led by men with whistles, and the Cubans had a pretty lively crowd themselves on the other side of the stadium. The stadium actually filled up pretty well for this game, so I guess allowing the illegal ticket sales really is working! One weird note- for some reason the sound system kept playing a rock version of Jingle Bells throughout the game, but Estee and I were the only people who seemed to notice...OK well thats it for now. The moral of this post- maybe the Chinese system of letting corruption run rampant really does have its virtues!
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment