Lan Kwai Fong Incident. NYE 1993

Hong Kong

News: In New Years Eve 1993, 21 people were crushed to death due to overcrowding.

Last year I was furious at some fob (fresh off the boat) in Hong Kong. He was complaining about the way the police had cordoned off the area, and how it was such a police state. I tried to explain to him that people were killed “right over there” exactly ten years ago, and that every ounce of police effort should be respected. One of the kids who died was 13 years old on his way home as he lived in the area.

He told me he didn’t believe me and started shouting, “Yeah, right, all these people got killed RIGHT OVER THERE. Hahahahaha.”

I asked him not to be so loud as most people in the bar spent their lives in Hong Kong and we don’t really like to be reminded, and that some people in that room actually lived through it. It’s not nice to make them remember.

He stopped and went, “Oh, you break my heart” in a real sarcastic way.

—-

I had a random, slightly weird new year this year, at a party which was pretty mellow with people we didn’t know. It wasn’t what we expected, very very quiet. Most of our friends were out of town, so we thought anything that was easy, simple and not too crowded would do.

It was okay, I was with the person and his wife I wanted to spend it with. I have spent probably more than five new years with Adam since we were teenagers. Considering both of us are in and out of town so much, it’s nice to know some traditions remain.

We were trying to remember all the new years we spent together and he said, “That year, we were so lucky,”

“Yes,” I said, “Between you and G, maybe you saved my life.”

The night we were referring to was New Year’s Eve 1993. We were 18. When a series of unexpected events culminated to 21 people crushed to death at the corner of LKF. Many more were injured, and some suffered a great deal psychologically. A friend still has nightmares all these years later.

Early on that week, G had accepted an invite to Adam’s place for New Years, I didn’t want to go, I wanted to go to LKF with my girlfriends. We bickered and I said, “I want to spend it with my friends.” And G went, “I thought we were your friends too.” I realized he was right, and accepted the invite.

The plan was to have everyone meet at the stroke of midnight in Lanks. Most of us never made it there, as we were all busy on boats, dinners with parents, drinks whatever. But some of our friends were. Some of our friends were crushed, passed out, opened their eyes to a horror which they mention sometimes, but not often. A couple we didn’t know well never made it out.

That evening those of us who attended the dinner party arrived to the top of Lan Kwai Fong a few hours after midnight, and were faced with police cordons, masses of people wandering confused, ambulances and was told stories of people who turned blue, dead people, crushes, people repeating themselves over what they saw, none of which we really understood, not sure if we believed.

I asked for the where abouts of my friends, as it was the days before mobile phones. One was missing, “Where is Jenny? Why is Jenny not here?” I repeated. Then Rick appeared, and told me she’d jumped off the junk on a dare and was taken home, she was okay. I think he took her home, which meant he missed it too (Rick? Right? You need to call me? Aren’t you in town?). It was a relief but we still didn’t know what had happened really. We knew it was something, but not the extent of it. We figured the biggest stories had to do with drinking too much and exaggeration.

A huge group which had gathered there descended to someone’s club house in their parent’s place but there was no alcohol, so my close friends decided to go to seven eleven to buy some.

In the cab, the news came on.

A high pitched newscaster voices reiterated, “19 people were killed in an accident in LKF this evening around the stroke of midnight.” I went quiet and leaned over to the radio, “xx were rushed to hospital, the area has now been cleared, the police says….”

As the only Cantonese speaker, I had to tell my friends. I said, “Guys.. listen…” I was met with silence. Maybe Rachel went, “Oh my god.” I don’t think we really knew what to do. What to say to that?

We arrived to Circle K at the bottom of the Bank of America Building, which was the only thing that was 24 hours in Central then. As we rolled in we were greeted by a bunch of people buying drinks straggling and oddly standing there was a girl who was also at the party with us.

We rolled down the window and she said, “I wish someone had called us, so we could have stayed at yours and not bothered to come out.”

Simultaneously we decided the evening was over and it was time to head home, but maybe not by ourselves. Adam, Simon, Grenville, Rachel and I asked the cab to take us to my parent’s apartment.

There everyone made calls, to tell our families they were safe. People’s parents woke up to calls from other parts of the world to hear what happened as it was still day, and their friends had called to ask if they were okay. Someone’s mom actually went with her friend to Lang Kwai Fong in an attempt to find him.

We sat around and talked for a while and I grabbed blankets for everyone as we drifted to sleep in the guestroom, the sofa or my bed. A while later, I crept out of my room, and found Simon awake on the balcony, so we went up to the roof and talked, not wanting to wake anyone else up.

We tried to make sense of what exactly happened and what does it mean to have all these people gone. We kept repeating to each other.

“Do you think everyone is okay?”

“I don’t know.”

“We can’t call can we? I mean it would wake up their parents?”

“We will know tomorrow. It will be all over the newspapers.”

“Yeah, I guess I rather never find out.”

Eventually the sunrise came over the city. It was a relief to see the pink of the sky, and the beams of lights reflecting of the glass in the corners of the high-rises, some of them were close to blinding.

That was the beginning of a new year.