THE FEAR and DEATH: Street Racing, Entry 4

I don’t even remember feeling the fear. In retrospect I should have been scared when these guys put me in their cars and went over 200 Kms on windy, hill roads. It never occurred to me to feel frightened. I just remember the thrill of it. The feeling that I am IN. The feeling that I am in the cars and filming this subculture. The happiness I felt when I smelt petrol and burning rubber. How I wished they would go faster and swing the tires and drift around the corner even more.

I am starting to realize everything blends in. My depression, my making this film, and that not that long before I started filming I wanted to escape from life too. I felt no fear because at that time I wasn’t scared of dying either. It was like, “Well, if I die making this film, then at least I was doing something I have always wanted to do.” It’s better than where I was a few months ago.

I know this thing is supposed to be scary. I invited a friend of mine to come one night. He didn’t want to film and he never wanted to do it again. I think if he had a choice he would have caught a cab and went home that night. He looked at me at some point and said “I don’t think I am made for this. These guys are really crazy.” I didn’t know what the hell he was talking about, because all I wanted was to go faster.

But I do remember the first time I felt fear. I was going to Shek O which is where my crew races, but I wasn’t in their cars. I was riding a bus, then I rode a cab out. And all around me were other cars racing past. And I was in the cab wondering why the hell the driver was going so slow. I thought he was going about 10 Kms and hour. I looked at the speedometer, and he was going 50, which was twice the speed limit already.

Then a bunch of racers over took my cab, before I could even open my camera lens they were gone. I couldn’t believe anyone going that fast on the road. I couldn’t understand why the hell anyone would endanger my life as well as others. Shek O is full of families and full of kids, one wrong move can take a whole family in their cars down. And suddenly I hated the racers, and I hated them for putting people in danger.

I didn’t ride for a week or two, I don’t think. I couldn’t see these guys the way I used to. I thought of them as thugs, and criminals. It changed everything. Because I felt a fear of who they were.

It’s strange to think about it now. Not once did I fear for my life, even when I was a hair pin away from dying. Like the time when we turned a corner and there was a car directly in front of us, and a bus behind us. If we didn’t get back on the right side of the road, I would have been on a full on collision, and I am pretty sure I would be dead.

And for some reason, car racing deaths were on the news a lot two weeks after that. Three other people died in that period. No one I knew, but one car went crashing into some railings in Tune Mun, another fell off a cliff near Sai Kung. There was another one right in the city.

I didn’t feel angry that those people died, or even particularly sad at that point. All I knew was it’s a good thing that they only took themselves. The truth is death is such a part of the scene. I had someone tell me that they don’t want to race anymore because the people who was on his level are either retired or dead. And he didn’t say he didn’t want to race anymore because he didn’t want to die, he didn’t want to race anymore because there was no one to race with.

I am not saying that these boys aren’t afraid of death. They tell me they are. But I don’t think life means the same to them as they do to a normal person. And maybe part of the reason I am not sure I want to get in the cars anymore is, as I lifted from my depression, I don’t have the same nonchalance towards death as I did last year. Even if I am sick again right now, part of me can see a different future, regardless if I make this film or not.

While at the time, the reason I was feeling better, the reason I could see a future was tied very much to me being a filmmaker, and making this film. Now, as I think of the graceful exit out of this project, I can see doing something else that maybe less dangerous, could be equally fulfilling.