Meet the Chinese Julie Burchill, and just as provoking. All that teenage angst, expecting life to be momentous when nothing actually happens, except music and boyfriends and arguing with parents and hating school. Does it sound familiar? You can laugh or cry from the safe distance of someone else's teenage years, and be glad that you don't have to go through all that again.

Later that day he took me to meet our drummer, a senior at a nearby high school. We rode there on our bikes, him in his funny-looking yellow-rimmed dark glasses, zigzagging our way over to Number Three Railway High. The school had an old classroom building and a huge athletic ground, where some kids were playing soccer. It was late March, almost April, and the boys had already changed into short-sleeved white soccer shirts. The school had a distinct grassy smell. Some of the kids stared at us, and I shoved my hands in my pockets.