IT'S A FAMILIAR FEELING. You're late for work, you've had a row with your spouse and you've just realised your Octopus card has run out. You grope in your pocket - no change. So you power-walk to the nearest automatic teller, sweat prickling your brow and dappling your shirt, only to be elbowed aside by a little old woman who decides it's time to gloat lingeringly over the balance of her various stashes of cash. You hear an icky squish and look down - your just-shined shoe has been enveloped by a fresh and sticky gob of phlegm.
Funds finally secured, footwear hastily scraped, you dash for the train. It's sitting there, doors tantalisingly open. Great. You pick up the pace, then, bang, they slam shut, nearly severing your nose. 'We apologise, there will be a slight delay before the next train,' intones the metallic, disembodied voice.
At this point, most mortals will let out a strangled yelp, a stream of invective or, like a shopaholic tourist over-stuffing a suitcase, cram it all away only to explode luridly later.
In an age where rage is all the rage, you would expect Hong Kong to be the perfect city in which to lose your rag, blow your top, spit the dummy or throw a wobbly. A Mecca for the mad. Space is limited. Quarters are cramped. Pushy people proliferate. And yet, despite the provocations, there is surprisingly little ranting in the streets.
According to Cheshire-born, San Francisco-based psychologist and anger management specialist Dr Sylvia Mills, this stems from a Chinese cultural propensity to 'somatise' ire and angst. Mills, who worked in Hong Kong during the 1970s and 80s and returned briefly last week, says: 'More than most Westerners, Chinese people experience their emotions in the form of physical symptoms. If someone is very stressed or angry, they may have bad headaches or weak breathing, aches and pains, no appetite.'
People may not be belting each other over the head with rolled-up newspapers in the rush-hour crush or indulging in florid, frothy-mouthed, middle-fingered exchanges in the Cross Harbour Tunnel queue, but that doesn't mean there is not a lot of anger simmering away in the SAR. And unresolved anger, says Mills, can eat away at both body and psyche like a cancer.