Tirade launches 'Bus Uncle' into Web infamy

I think it's safe to assume that Hong Kong resident Roger Chan was having one of those days.

Chan lost his cool when 23-year-old Elvis Ho tapped his shoulder, asking him to lower the volume of his mobile phone conversation, according to the Wall Street Journal. Ho addressed Chan as "Uncle," a familiar way of addressing an elderly man in Cantonese.

Chan turned around and publicly berated Ho, sprinkling his six-minute tirade with obscenities and phrases such as "I've got pressure!" and "It's not over!" (which he shouted when Ho responded by saying, "It's over").

The April 29 "Bus Uncle" incident, which occurred on the top deck of a Number 68X Kowloon, has since become a media sensation.

Jon Fong, a nearby 21 year-old accountant and night-school psychology student, was able to video record most of the ordeal on his Sony Ericsson cell phone. The film was uploaded on YouTube and then seen by the whole world in a number of different versions.

The video is available for downloading with and without obscenities, in Cantonese and in subtitles. As of May 27, ETTV cited 5.9 million people had seen the video.

Video spoofs--including one that stars Chan as Darth Vader--T-shirts sporting "Bus Uncle" and some of the famous phrases, which are also available as mobile-phone ringtones have become hot commodities among Hong Kong's younger crowd.