New Express (Intern Reporter Xu Na, Reporter Zhou Bidao) - As the Mid-Autumn Festival approaches, the entrances of many restaurants in Guangzhou are surrounded by "mooncake scalpers" eager to buy mooncake vouchers. The reporter learned that these scalpers will purchase mooncake vouchers at a 40% to 70% discount. Many citizens also expressed that selling their mooncake vouchers to the scalpers for cash is "quite practical." In response, a sociologist stated that behind this phenomenon lies an intricate and hard-to-break chain of interests.
**Dozens of Scalpers Gather Outside Restaurant Entrances**
At noon yesterday, the reporter observed at Taotaoju on Dashi Fu Road in Liwan District that two or three dozen "mooncake scalpers" with price lists were gathered outside the entrance. Whenever a customer approached the restaurant, the scalpers would immediately swarm around asking, "Do you have any mooncake vouchers? We can exchange them for cash." On the same street, at Lianxianglou, a few scalpers persistently followed customers in and out, trying to persuade them to sell their vouchers. At the Guangzhou Restaurant on Tiexi Road in Tianhe District, there were no fewer than 30 scalpers.
**Citizens Say Selling Vouchers is More Practical Than Eating Mooncakes**
Last Sunday noon, while shopping in Shangxiajiu, Xiao Feng was persuaded by a scalper who approached him. He sold two mooncake vouchers worth 80 yuan each for 100 yuan. He said, "The vouchers were issued by my company. I'm single and don't eat much mooncake, so I decided to sell them rather than waste them."
Miss Li, who works at CITIC Plaza, has been selling her mooncake vouchers to scalpers every year for the past few years. The other day, she sold ten vouchers at once. Miss Li joked, "I suggest the company stop giving out mooncakes during the Mid-Autumn Festival and just give us cash instead. Otherwise, the money we get from converting the vouchers into cash all goes to the scalpers."
**Buying Tickets for the Company, Keeping the Cash Privately**
Yesterday, at Guangzhou Restaurant on Tiexi Road, a man in a blue striped shirt walked out of the restaurant and handed over 20 mooncake vouchers to a scalper who approached him. The entire transaction was completed within minutes. When the reporter tried to interview him, the man quickly left. Uncle Liang, who conducted the transaction with him, confirmed to the reporter that they had traded twenty mooncake vouchers from Guangzhou Restaurant, but the amount of the transaction remained confidential. "He probably bought the vouchers for his company and sold the excess ones to us privately. Anyway, he has the invoice, so he's not worried about it."
**Expert: Those Who Eat Don't Buy, Those Who Buy Don't Eat**
Professor Hou Li from the School of Public Management at South China University of Technology stated that companies prefer to issue more mooncakes rather than cash, which may involve certain interests, such as the relationship between the invoicing entity and the mooncake manufacturer. In fact, mooncake vouchers are just the tip of the iceberg; they reflect the broader circulation of gift certificates and shopping cards in the market. These tickets, which have a certain purchasing power, circulate in the market, partly due to the influence of market forces and partly due to the impact of our cultural environment, such as replacing cash gifts with presents. "Those who eat mooncakes don't buy them, and those who buy them don't eat them." Behind this phenomenon lies an intricate and hard-to-break chain of interests.