Nation cuddles up to Olympic mascots
(China Daily)
Updated: 2005-11-16 06:46

Food for thought

But some citizens' obsession with the Olympic mascots went too far. The Beijing Metro decorated all its trains with pictures of the five. By Sunday afternoon, nearly half the pictures had gone.

The most stolen pictures were those of Jing Jing the Panda and Huan Huan the Olympic Flame, said a Beijing Metro employee.

"Of course everyone loves the pretty mascots," said a subway rider who gave only his surname, Zhang. "But it's a shame to steal the pictures. The Olympic Games is an occasion to present China to the world."

In Xiushui Street market (the former Silk Alley), a famous clothing market in Beijing, unlicensed Olympic mascots were found on Sunday the first such case unearthed, the Beijing News reported yesterday.

The stallholder is now facing a stiff fine, the newspaper said.

The mascots, which looked the same as those sold by authorized vendors, were sold as being genuine products from licensed producers, the paper said, adding that the stallholder had promised to provide the mascots to other markets in the city.

Meanwhile, an unlicensed toy factory in East China's Zhejiang Province also sent out advertisements saying it could supply Olympic mascots as early as next week, the Chongqing Business Daily reported yesterday.

According to China National Radio yesterday, the Chinese-version web names and addresses of the five mascots have already been registered by non-Olympic companies and individuals.

The Chinese domain names of Bei Bei and Ying Ying went to a high-tech company while the domain names of Jing Jing, Huan Huan and Ni Ni were registered by a company in Dalian, Northeast China. The uniform resource locator (URL) of Bei Bei was taken by a web company in Xiamen, East China's Fujian Province, the radio report said.

(China Daily 11/16/2005 page5)