Bulletin No. 1, 2024

stuffy, and dozens of people would be gasping for air when we had warm weather.” He recalls how, in the 1990s, the school buses were all British imports. Two buses from Bedford Vehicles were especially hard to drive, always giving him sore arms after work. Their wheels were situated in a more forward position than a normal bus and had a wooden bench across them, so if a couple of students sat on it, their weight would make turning impossible no matter how hard he rotated the steering wheel. Eventually, they had to ban students from sitting on that particular bench. Chan emphasises that school bus drivers are not confined to campus routes. He says: “In previous years, following a convocation, the University management would hold a farewell banquet, so I would drive the bus that took them there, and then do the return trip as well. There’d be 30 to 40 people making that trip, from CUHK to the banquet hall and back again.” The University’s periodic invitations of luminaries and scholars also provided special opportunities. In 2004, CUHK awarded China’s first astronaut Yang Liwei an honorary doctorate in science, and it was Chan who had the privilege of driving him in a VIP vehicle. They did not speak much, but the close encounter with China’s first man in space was, for Chan, a moment in his decades-long career he could never forget. the patrol cars,” but he says those snacks were key to giving them energy to work. Chan describes the 1980s campus as almost Elysian, with colleagues mingling like one big family. As security officers, they had a “special mission”: goat-catching. “Every evening there’d be three or four of them from Chek Nai Ping village next door. Whenever you got the call, you had to go and catch them with a net shaped like a hula hoop. It was like a game at the funfair: you would see the goat, and then you’d throw the net. But it never worked.” The Security Office was especially on edge during typhoon season, and those on “typhoon shift” would have to be on standby. Chan says this shift was the toughest sort: not only did they have to check for fallen trees, but their prompt assistance was also required if a residence or hostel had broken windows, or was taking in water. Built into a hillside, CUHK’s scattered buildings all over the expansive slopes necessitated the creation of a connecting bus service. Chan was 1 Chan Shu-pui drives a fire engine while working at the Security Office, 1980s (courtesy of interviewee) 2 Chan Shu-pui poses with a school-bus, 2003 (courtesy of interviewee) 2 always an avid driver, and in 1990 he decided to switch to driving campus buses—a job he still does to this day. When he joined the Transport Office, only about 10 people were directly employed due to the fewer routes and lower frequency; all “meet-class buses” were subcontracted to outside drivers. Compared to security work, Chan feels that driving is a much lighter job—with only morning and night shifts, the latter ending at 11pm, he no longer needed to be a night owl. School buses nowadays have automatic gears and air conditioning, giving both driver and passengers a comfortable ride. “Years ago, none of the buses had air-con,” Chan says. “It was very The watchful guardian of CUHK behind the scenes   49