I live close to Beijing's Olympic Village where some posters and billboards with inspirational slogans are still visible on walls or atop buildings, evoking memories of a determined city to make the 2008 Olympic Games a success.

One of the slogans urged people to fight a "decisive battle" as the city went into an overdrive for the Games. Construction laborers worked round the clock to build venues before the deadline, volunteers practiced their most charming smiles until their jaws became sore. Even the feared chengguan, or urban administrators, pledged to fight the battle of their lives to teach people civilized manners.

I have always shrugged off such oaths and pledges as foolish exaggerations for show. But over the last weekend, when I coughed and sneezed in the suffocating, apocalyptic smog that shrouded the city, I wished the collective fervor had persisted longer, and the city's "decisive battle" against air pollution had raged on.