Enough is enough: the Olympics are still a few weeks away, yet in a display of sticky patriotism that could only happen here, the government, or ‘Invest Hong Kong’ – the title logo on many of the Olympic adverts, a constant reminder of the business-minded thought process driving the entire campaign – is using brute force to convert Hong Kongers to the religion of One-World-One-Dream by covering every surface in the HKSAR with Beijing Olympics propaganda. Tram stops, parking metres, sign posts, shopping malls, and buses are all covered with heavy-duty stickers of Beibei, Jingjing, Huanhuan, Yingying and Nini. For those of you whose Putonghua isn’t up to snuff, the names create the phrase “Beijing Welcomes You” when said together. These five fuwa, lucky dolls, were designed to “express the playful qualities of five children,” and childish they are: with their over-sized cartoon heads and rhyming two-syllable names – a traditional expression of childish affection – they make their appearance on the happy-go-lucky stickers not only to cover the side of that bus across the street, but to plaster over the more weighty issues of air pollution and political freedom looming over the Beijing Games – issues which had the potential to stir the minds and conversation of the all SAR people. So the next time a dressed-up parking metre implies that all the SAR needs to ‘unite the world in peace and friendship through the Olympic spirit’ and to bring prosperity, happiness, passion, health and good luck are a gang of five dolls with blessed headdresses, keep in mind that if we, as patriotic Hong Kongers, don’t do our part to peel off the fluffy commercial surface, our dear friends might one day, if not already, be covered themselves in a heavy layer of smog.

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