Stuart Wolfendale

 

Teenagers are muter, less predictable and more unsettling. Even the term itself is packed with a sneering, anthropoid threat. So you may be surprised, as I was by myself, to learn that I have almost but not quite nothing but admiration for the “Aberdeen Bus Boys”.  Decoration worker Wong and 16 year old student Tsang were sentenced to 180 hours community service and 18 months probation on Friday for taking altogether six buses on four occasions for rides round Aberdeen in the middle of the night.

When the mysterious relocations of these buses was reported in December, I wrote knowingly that this was a ritual triad warning to the bus companies for being tardy in paying their protection money and marveled at how gangsters had so many qualified bus drivers amongst their ranks. I was gloriously wrong. It was all down to two working class teenagers who showed more willingness to have a rumble with risk and rage than year after yawning year of Hong Kong Most Promising Young Persons winners.

At first I had marveled at how catatonic the snoozes of the bus depot caretakers must have been for the lads to fire up and drive these behemoths out of the yard unnoticed but then it became clear that the ancient Hong Kong bus company tradition of just leaving them by the roadside at the end of the day was still being fully observed. Anyone who has stood in a bus station and watched a driver approach a closed bus after his break will know how to open the front door through the little panel flap right by it.. If they sit up front near the driving cab they can pay attention to the buttons that need pressing to start the engine. Bus drivers do not seem to go in for keys very much.

Yet how many of us would actually engage gear and sling the thing into the traffic? With Decorator Wong acting as lookout and riding shotgun, that is exactly what Student Tsang did. Not that there is much traffic on Aberdeen Praya Road in the middle of the night or the lads would have been up in front of graver men in powdered wigs. They might have squished a night ‘road racer’ or three which would have challenged many of us in our reactions.  In fact only minor damage was done. On their first attempt, they hit the truck parked in front. What novice amongst us has not kanagoored his vehicle at the first go? Second time around it was nearby railings but young Tsang was obviously getting the hang of the steering and after that the evenings seem to have been trouble free. Alright they were actually caught when the cops noticed their  bus clipping a roundabout island but I know few Americans who can navigate even a sedan with any confidence round these British inspired ‘traffic circles’Unfortunately when a double-decker does damage, it does it thoroughly and the boys are somehow going to have to pay off $61,000 in costs to the bus companies. Nevertheless Student Tsang and Decorator Wong showed a spirit merging into folly which is sadly rare these days. They were not developing bum rash in twelve hour stints in front of computer screens. They were not nerdly stooped and immobile over hand held video games. They were not locked in their rooms disappearing up their own fundaments over bad  grades. Neither were they spending the early hours of the morning on Ecstacy in a rave party. They were out driving buses! Of course they won’t do that again. They will want to graduate. I had thought of trains but then trains are rarely left by the side of the road with the keys in and anyway, once you’ve got the hang of the stop and start handles the ride would  be too straight and narrow for them. This is just a guess but if I were the PLA, I’d keep whatever heavy wheels they have over there on Stonecutters under close guard