Damn you to hell, capitalist swine

When I'm walking through Hong Kong on a mission -- in today's case, to catch a bus -- and engrossed in the iPod-playlist-influenced, Mittyesque world in my head, I rarely take notice of my surroundings. But on Des Voeux Road, I accidentally bumped into a guy who was part of a small protest against Citibank. Most of the signs were in Chinese, but there were two in English that seemed to capture the spirit:




Protesting is a national hobby here and, unlike in the US, I don't get the impression police are just itching to crack skulls. One night, I might encounter members of the banned-in-China group Falun Gong setting up elaborate demonstrations in the high-traffic shopping area of Causeway Bay against alleged organ harvesting by the Chinese government. Or I might come across a guy with needles in his chest protesting against the Beijing Olympics:



I'm saying this as an outsider who doesn't come close to understanding Hong Kong's political culture, but it's strange when a special administrative region of a communist country appears to allow more freedom for citizen protest than in the US.