Train ride in China

Went to prat for your ancestors for Qing Ming festival yet? I did that last Saturday. Somehow my family aren't really that superstitious and they would rather avoid the huge crowd than squeezing their way through the huge crowd and all. Anyway, there aren't really much to talk about the huge amount of time they've used to search for the grave (it's a government cemetery, not somewhere remote) and go there and 拜拜 and calling it a day. What I am interested in talking about is, in fact, the train or more specifically, the train ticket. A picture speaks a thousand words so see for yourself. First pic is the train station, 2nd pic is the train cabin, third and forth is the ticket.

For an one hour journey, the train is a bit far too clean and decent, especially in China, eh? Even the train station looks a bit far too clean and post. What's more, look at the ticket. It's made of paper and all but the thing is the mechanism inside is just too out of the world. I've torn the ticket apart, soak it in water, rubbed away the paper on the surface and what is inside is shown in the last picture. The train ticket work just like those magnetic cards you used for normal subway rides (EZ-link in Singapore, Octopus card in Hong Kong, Oyster card in England). The thing is, this is a disposable item (similar to those disposable forks and spoons and paper plates), what's the point? Can't they stick with those magnetic tape version? How much so you think each of this ticket cost (EZ -link cost 6 buck according to mediacorp news, and I've already broken one =P), and don't forget to multiply all these by the number of passenger each day, which comes in thousands. Even though there is a little hole which says "Please put your used ticket here", there are always people like me who would take the ticket back home for experiment and all. Oh well ... China is damn rich alright, and they aren't stingy in showing off =.=