D-72 to D-71, uh oh, here comes another taxi rant

The cab ride to work was nauseating this morning.

Most HK cabs insist on having their dispatch radio on full blast, but usually my mind can block the sound out. This morning, though, I found myself counting how many times the woman on the other end said the same thing - with a record of 19 for one destination! When you consider that Cantonese is a rather harsh language (one friend likens it to cats fighting in her garden), this can make your ride into work seem very long indeed. Just to be clear, that's (at full volume and with radio crackling):

"Sam say sam sing dan say Sheung Wan, sam say sam sing dan say Sheung Wan, sam say sam sing dan say Sheung Wan, sam say sam sing dan say Sheung Wan, sam say sam sing dan say Sheung Wan, sam say sam sing dan say Sheung Wan, sam say sam sing dan say Sheung Wan, sam say sam sing dan say Sheung Wan, sam say sam sing dan say Sheung Wan, sam say sam sing dan say Sheung Wan, sam say sam sing dan say Sheung Wan, sam say sam sing dan say Sheung Wan, sam say sam sing dan say Sheung Wan, sam say sam sing dan say Sheung Wan, sam say sam sing dan say Sheung Wan, sam say sam sing dan say Sheung Wan, sam say sam sing dan say Sheung Wan, sam say sam sing dan say Sheung Wan, sam say sam sing dan say Sheung Wan"

And that's just one of them. A 30 minute traffic jam allows room for many more beautiful sentences to be repeated ad nauseum. It really made me feel ill.

I know what you are thinking. "Taxi?! If you're complaining about taking a taxi, get yourself on a bus. Or a tram. On yer bike!" And you would be right, of course. But that's not the point - I think this capacity for taxi drivers to allow such noise pollution to enter their workplace (often accompanied with loud fm radio debates, too) just demonstrates why this country is so unbearable - no one cares about jackhammers and horns and buses and drills and and and. Perhaps if everyone turned their radio off they would hear what an audible mess is going on around them and scale down the unnecessary roadworks that seem to take place everywhere, every day (the jackhammers at the bottom of our building have been there for 10 months now, moving a quarter of an inch a month...)

Be quiet Hong Kong. Then maybe I won't have to move half an hour away to get some peace and quiet (and even there will be noisy).

OK. Rant over.