A Death In Hong Kong

I have really hesitated to post this one, because it's a very serious subject, and I don't want to upset anyone. But I've finally decided that it's "honest" and that, furthermore, it might reveal something to you about the community in which I live and work. 

. . .

26 November, 2002. 

A woman died outside our school today.

And I heard her die...

I don't know who she was. I don't know what her situation was. I don't know who, or why, or anything like that.

But for some reason, she climbed out of a window in the high-rise building behind our school... and jumped.

. . .

I was sitting in the staff room, thinking about lesson plans for the next few weeks. It wasn't anything big, and I probably wasn't thinking all that hard, if I told the truth. But I was sitting there, with papers and books spread out in front of me, and okay, now I'm telling this I might as well admit it, I was pretty much only acting like I was working... and a few other teachers were sitting nearby -- they may have even been chatting a bit, I don't know. There was the sound of construction going on outside, it's sort of a constant drone of hammers and saws and bulldozers and stuff outside our school. 

And there were kids playing. Yeah, I definitely remember that, because I remember hearing one of the teachers, "Kit" is his English name, and he was teaching his PE class down on the playground, and so the kids were running and yelling and playing some game or other, and he was blowing his whistle every few moments. And I remember that I had been thinking about that, and thinking about how Kit only teaches one PE class a week, and I think that's class such-and-such... Just thoughts rambling about like that, you know.

And then I remember hearing a horrible sound. 

What it sounded like, and I'm not sure this is accurate, but it sounded like a brick being dropped on a tin roof. Or something like that. Obviously a really BIG brick hitting a tin roof -- and I say it sounded like that because it sounded metallic, and it was loud, and it was abrupt. There was no yelling that I remember, no screaming, really. Just a big, hard, metallic, CRASH.

And it made my heart jump. It really did.

I mean, in the midst of the cacophony that you can hear in our staff room (if you are sitting there, acting like you are working), this sound stood out. Maybe it was louder, maybe there was something about it that just sounded, I don't know... WORSE. But it made my heart jump, and it startled me. What I want to say is (and this may not help you understand my reaction, but in my head it somehow really captures something about this sound), but what I want to tell you is that ... it sounded like SOMETHING HAD HAPPENED. And I remember -- I mean, this is very vivid in my mind, actually -- I remember looking up suddenly, and looking towards the windows, and sort of craning my neck to listen. Because it struck me as so alarming, this sound (for whatever reason), that my gut felt like something had happened out on the playground, "There's been an accident or something, and one of the kids just got hurt" -- that's what my immediate gut reaction was. But the kids were still playing out there, they were still laughing and yelling and everything, and Kit was blowing his whistle -- so it wasn't something happening to them. And the other teachers weren't acting like they even heard it. I mean, I was looking to see their reaction to this sound -- it was that "attention-getting"... But they didn't have any reaction at ALL -- they were just sitting there, grading papers or whatever. No one else even looked up.

So, whatever. I remember thinking, "Geez, what was that?" and then just chalking it up to some more construction sounds... and I went back to my "work" at hand. 

And it happened just like that. Me all wrapped up in my inner world, thinking about a bunch of stuff and nothing at the same time, and meanwhile some woman was climbing out on the ledge of her apartment, thinking, "Should I?" -- and answering, incredibly, "Yes."

. . .

There are a few things you might ought to know about suicide in HK. 

For instance, if you are going to kill yourself in HK, it seems you will often (though not always) choose one of two ways. The FIRST method is: climb out your window and don't come back. The OTHER method -- and I'm not sure if this is so common, or if it just somehow has captured my attention more than other methods -- but the other method is that you will lock yourself up in a tightly sealed room and burn charcoal -- apparently the gasses will eventually suffocate you (it's sort of the "car-less" version of the "lock yourself in the garage with the car running" trick). Compared to the first option, this "burn the charcoal" thing seems like a lot of trouble to me, but it ends up being fairly popular, and in fact some of the most high-profile cases of suicide in HK (that I've heard of) seem to involve this method. I suppose it has something to do with the first method of "long walks off of short ledges" probably seeming a little more PAINFUL to the person considering suicide, though I doubt that either of these techniques is more graceful than the other, if you know what I mean. 

Another thing you ought to know is that kids kill themselves a LOT in HK, or at least it seems that way. I've heard people say it has to do with all the pressure they're under to succeed at school, and all that kind of stuff. But I think it also has an awful lot to do with the fact that the media gives fairly spectacular coverage to these child suicides. I mean, why shouldn't they, right? It's horrible, of course they will cover it. But I'm just saying that it happens enough and it is talked about enough that now when a kid in HK has what he or she thinks are serious problems, there's no question that killing themselves is one option they might consider.

Last spring there was a really talked-about case where 4 teenagers rented a beach house, made a suicide pact, and then using the charcoal method took their own lives. I don't even know what it was about, this suicide pact, if it had anything to do with "love" or whatever. But I remember everyone was talking about it, and the newspapers (like always) had computer graphics diagramming the exact layout of the "scene" -- the charcoal was here, the note was here, body #1 was here, etc. etc... 

And I also remember reading about another case where a P6 (i.e.--"sixth grade") kid down in Tuen Mun jumped from his apartment on the 30th-something floor. He was home with his mother, who was sleeping on the couch, when for whatever reason he opened the window in one of the bedrooms and climbed out on top of the air-conditioner. He apparently sat there for a while, because people saw him and were in the process of trying to figure out what apartment it was when he finally -- without ever knowing that anyone even noticed he was out there -- just pushed himself off. His mother had no idea what was going on in the next room until they finally came to the door of the apartment and woke her. 

Can you imagine that?

And actually, we've had some experiences with the "suicide" issue near the school before, too -- today wasn't the first time. I remember last spring I was meeting in the school office with another teacher when I spotted a guy climbing out on the ledge of the school across the street. I said, "Uh, I hate to interrupt but we have to move, NOW!" -- we had the staff call the office of that school and meanwhile she and I ran out and across the street. I kept saying to her, "Don't look up at him, we don't want him to know we're watching" -- for some reason I felt like if he knew we were trying to stop him it might make him jump before we could get up there. So we ran across the street and stood at the gate for what seemed like an eternity trying to get them to come let us in. I mean, by this time this kid had been out there for like 5 or 6 minutes. Another lady came walking up, looking TOTALLY stressed out, and she was also trying to buzz in the front gate -- and those bozos, they weren't answering! You can imagine how nuts and desperate we were feeling. That is, until the janitor lady came waltzing out the front door, lazily eating an apple, and told us that the guy out on the ledge may LOOK like a student, but actually he's a worker with the air-conditioner installers, and he's out there to attach some pipes. "Yeah, a bunch of people just called us, ha ha." (She apparently thought it was funny, but it sure took us a while for all our adrenaline levels to return to normal)...

And there have been more ominous situations, too. For instance, I know at least one young woman who was associated with our school whose fiance tried to commit suicide last spring (and almost succeeded). And then, again last spring, another woman jumped from the 30th-something floor of a building right next to the school (maybe the same building?) -- but, horrifically, that woman jumped with her newborn child in her arms...

So even though no one likes to talk about suicide, maybe I think that in HK it's always there in the background a little more than I'm used to. It's like, whenever a student (or anyone) acts really strange or different, or whenever they walk off from a confrontation really upset, the thought that seems to go through every teacher's mind is, "Are they upset enough to do something drastic?"

Because some people DO get upset enough to do drastic things...

. . .

So about an hour after I had been startled by the sound, I noticed that they had blocked off part of our playground. What I mean is, they took some of that plastic tape they use at construction sites (sort of like "police line" tape, only it's red-and-white instead of yellow-and-black), and they cordoned off a big section of the playground near the back side of the property. I noticed it, but it didn't strike me as any big deal -- they do that all the time when they are working on stuff. It wasn't until a while later that someone told me WHY they had done it:

"Some lady jumped from that building back there."

And suddenly, the moment when I had heard that awful sound came back to me. And I realized in a flash that I had literally heard that woman hit the ground.

. . .

To be honest, her death didn't affect our school much at all. We didn't change our school's schedule for the day. We didn't observe a moment of silence. We didn't even want the kids to know anything about it -- for obvious reasons. So, other than blocking off part of the playground for a few hours, it was business as usual for us. And by the end of the school day everything was "cleaned up" and they took down the tape, just like nothing had happened. 

. . .

One thing that has stayed with me is that somehow -- and I can't imagine it, I mean, I'm still wondering about it, actually -- but SOMEHOW, none of the kids saw a thing. We had maybe 80 kids out on the playground, in FULL SIGHT of this woman's window (and the ground underneath), but they were so wrapped up in their games, I suppose, that they never knew a thing. And that feels like some kind of miracle. 

But thinking about that -- the fact that none of our kids saw her -- has made me think about something else, too. 

Like, what were the last things that woman saw? 

What I mean is, the apartment she jumped from basically has only one view -- OUR SCHOOL. The last thing she saw, if she even looked, was those kids out there playing, and running around, and having fun. 

And she saw one other thing:

She saw the cross...

The above photo is of the very back of our school, the side facing the apartment buildings that surround us. And that woman that killed herself died less than 100 feet from that cross.

And I wish I could say something deep about that, but I can't... 

What I mean is, something in my gut says it ought to TELL me something that I've noticed this -- that she killed herself a few yards from one of the biggest crosses in Tin Shui Wai. 

But all I keep thinking about is how life in Hong Kong -- life ANYWHERE -- can be BRUTAL. It doesn't matter how rich you are or how modern the city is. People are still bombing and fighting and stealing and walking all over each other. They're going through life empty, day after day, with no Hope, with no Peace, with no idea that there might be a better way. 

And it just seems frustrating that no matter how hard we work, no matter how much Love we try to give away, people are still -- all around us -- giving in, and giving up. 

. . .

Ever since that day, I've been looking at that building, and looking at that window (it's the only window in a whole 40-storey building FULL of windows that is missing the protective grill work installed to prevent any accidental falls). And I see that window there, (which is STILL gaping open as of this writing -- the 10th of March!), and I keep thinking, "Don't people feel creeped out about that window still being open?!?" 

And I see everyone, just like always, walking back and forth down at the foot of the building, just outside our fence, and every so often someone will walk over the exact spot where she died, and I'll think, "Don't they know what happened on those bricks they just walked over?" -- almost like it should be considered sacred ground or something... someone DIED there, you know? It's like, shouldn't they put up a plaque or something? 

And I keep thinking about that lady, and wondering what made her do it. And I think about her family, wondering if she had one, and wondering what they are feeling now, months later. 

And -- sometimes -- I wonder if any of the other teachers ever think about her -- because, in some ways, I think that as bad as her killing herself was, it would somehow be even worse if we just forgot about it...  

This article was first posted: 10 March 2003

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