Dragon dance stamp foul-up leaves HK Post in a tight spot

Hongkong Post has been criticized for putting dragon dance on its new special stamps for tomorrow's Cheung Chau Bun Festival.

An island leader said the dragon dance is never performed during the festival.

Cheung Chau Bun Festival committee chairman Yung Chi-ming said people on the island never had dragon dancing for the bun festival or other celebrations according to its long-standing tradition.

"Cheung Chau people would only perform unicorn dance or the pixiu dance for festive celebrations, with dragons only featured on flags occasionally," Yung said.

He said the postal department had e-mailed him the stamp design before its launch but he was too busy preparing for the bun festival to review it.

"Many unexpected things happened during the preparation and a lot of time was spent on them," Yung said, referring to the collapse of bun towers due to strong winds weeks ago.

He added that the committee had no plans to ask the department to remove the stamps from sale or revise their design and would respect its handling of the matter.

The post office on May 9 issued a set of four stamps, two stamp sheetlets, and associated philatelic products on the theme of the festival but questions about the design of dragon dancing were soon raised online. "Storytelling" - a cultural Facebook page - posted on the same day that people on Cheung Chau never performed such dragon dances.

The design of dragon dancing was also suspected of infringing the copyright of a local dragon and lion dancing team.