Review of a book: Our Hot Dogs’ Story (2012)

Public transport is a part of everyone’s daily life. In fact, they may contain a lot of memories inside, such as journeys of going to school, journeys of dating your companions, etc. As non-air conditioned buses have retired in May 2012, Dominic Kung, as a bus enthusiast, wrote a book called Our Hot Dog’s Story, describing the development of “hot dog buses”, a remarkable type of transportation which has grown with many Hong Kong citizens.

The author of this book describes the development of “hot dog buses” in a chronological order. The book starts with description of the earliest type of double-decker buses appeared in Hong Kong in 1949, with different remarkable moments of development “hot dog buses” mentioned afterwards, such as longer buses being imported in 1960s, elimination of ticket-sellers on buses in 1970s, and the appearance of 12 meter-long jumbo buses in 1980s. There are factual descriptions about “hot dog buses” during different generations on one hand, with several color pictures showing the real appearance of “hot dog buses” being described. It is easy for readers to find themselves familiar with the description of the bus service in which they have really experienced, especially for readers who born in 1960s to 1970s, they may find the old-fashioned buses being described in the book very familiar, thus they may start to recall their memories about that. In fact, this is a reflection of “collective memory” of the readers, while the photographs showing the images of the old-fashioned buses are the “collective frameworks”. According to Halbwachs, collective frameworks are “the instruments used by the collective memory to reconstruct an image of the past which is in accord, in each epoch, with the predominant thoughts of the society”. (Halbwachs, 1992) For the readers, their memories generated from the images of the buses may not solely focus the body or interior seats of the buses. In fact, the memories may be about their life scenes during childhood such as going to and from school by bus, chatting with girlfriends on the “hot dog buses”, or rushing back home seeing TV dramas after work using “hot dog buses”. The images of “hot dog buses” have become the collective framework for them to develop and reconstruct further memories among themselves.

Some people may argue that “hot dog buses” were not decent while some people enjoyed the time riding on “hot dog buses” and always look back onto it. Such phenomenon could be explained by Halbwachs’ suggestion about kinds of memory. According to Halbwachs, there are two kinds of memory as “one made of habits and turned toward action, and another which involves a certain disinterest in present life”. (Halbwachs, 1992) Some people’s good perceptions towards the memories of hot dog buses may be generated from their disinterest in present life, such as feeling dizzy in the sealed bus compartment nowadays, thus recalled his memory about the time when he can open the windows and enjoy natural wind when riding on “hot dog buses”.

Figure 1A: Upper: A "Hot Dog" bus featuring "Hong Kong: Asian's World City" Advertisement in Kowloon City
Figure 1B: Below: A modern bus featuring the same advertisement at the same position running on the same route as above

References:

Halbwachs, M. (Ed and translated by Coser L.A.) On Collective Memory. United States: The University of Chicago Press, 1992. Print. 40, 47.

By MAN Ho-Fai Ronald

Figure 1A,1B taken by the writer.
Image of the book cover copied from <http://www.orientalmodelbuses.co.uk/news_120704-1.jpg>