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Loud Mobile Phone Users in Hong Kong
Date
Friday, 28 August, 2009
Content
An occasional annoyance I've endured in my six months in Hong Kong is the bus-riding, loud mobile phone user. The individual often seems oblivious to the volume of their own voice, though I must say that the Cantonese language doesn't seem to lend itself to softly spoken tones anyway (unlike Mandarin).
But when forced to ride a sui-ba, one of the sixteen-seat public light minibuses, with a loudly spoken mobile phone user, there's something very grating and annoying about the experience. It's made worse with a headache.
It could be the accent (cultural), the tone (aural) or content (intellectual!) but more likely all three and the fact that I'd have to ride out the conversation that in my eyes, turns Hong Kong's loud mobile phone users into society's worst offenders of noise pollution.
It's not just me either. The start of an offender's conversation is usually followed by disapproving head-turns from other passengers and seen more recently, in no less than four glares from the bus driver - and I mean a full-on, turn-around-in-his-seat glare.
To give myself a distraction, I've now taken to recording the conversations and caught the tail-end of the latest offender's call in the audio link below. I'm considering creating a new gallery of shame to include a photo as well.
090807 : Bus Uncle on the 20C minibus to Tai Po
(An mp3 audio file will pop up in a small window)
I often consider shouting at offenders except my crap Cantonese is unlikely to rebuff any likely retort. Especially if it's like this "bus uncle" in this *famous* YouTube clip (over 2 million views) below, who goes on and on at the youthful complainer.
Anyone else out there with a view on loud mobile phone users?
But when forced to ride a sui-ba, one of the sixteen-seat public light minibuses, with a loudly spoken mobile phone user, there's something very grating and annoying about the experience. It's made worse with a headache.
It could be the accent (cultural), the tone (aural) or content (intellectual!) but more likely all three and the fact that I'd have to ride out the conversation that in my eyes, turns Hong Kong's loud mobile phone users into society's worst offenders of noise pollution.
It's not just me either. The start of an offender's conversation is usually followed by disapproving head-turns from other passengers and seen more recently, in no less than four glares from the bus driver - and I mean a full-on, turn-around-in-his-seat glare.
To give myself a distraction, I've now taken to recording the conversations and caught the tail-end of the latest offender's call in the audio link below. I'm considering creating a new gallery of shame to include a photo as well.
090807 : Bus Uncle on the 20C minibus to Tai Po
(An mp3 audio file will pop up in a small window)
I often consider shouting at offenders except my crap Cantonese is unlikely to rebuff any likely retort. Especially if it's like this "bus uncle" in this *famous* YouTube clip (over 2 million views) below, who goes on and on at the youthful complainer.
Anyone else out there with a view on loud mobile phone users?
Categories
Living in Hong Kong. Observations.
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Seems there was more to "Bus Uncle" than I first thought:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bus_Uncle
Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
on 08/10/09 at 08:38 PM
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