Life. Death. Everything Between.

I will say straight away that this is a morbid blog entry.  Do not read it if you are sensitive because this misery of mine wants no company at all.  This week has been straight from hell and I just need to let it out, no holds barred.  (Post Script Note: As it turns out, there is a positive and inspired ending... it may be worth the read after all! But then I feel guilty that I am feeling temporarily better after a brief journal entry while some people's lives are changed forever... and so the cyclic nature of my thoughts shall continue.)

My co-worker, a fellow teacher, committed suicide earlier this week.  I didn’t really know her well, as I am new to the school, but I’m having a very hard time handling this.  She did it in full Hong Kong tradition: jumping from a tall building.  I suppose in North America, drugs and guns are the method of choice because they are so readily available.  Here, skyscrapers line the streets and 60 floor building complexes compartmentalize all 7 million of our city’s residents into 200 square feet apiece; there are ample buildings from which to plunge.  My friend from work said that at least two Hong Kong teachers jump to their deaths each year.  Hong Kong is a city of stress and pressure.  It can be intense, foreboding, and suffocating.  Please don’t get me wrong; it is also full of beauty, culture, nature, and excitement... but as a visitor making this my home for a few years, I view it much differently than someone who has grown up here.  From the outside, looking in, I can really appreciate the academic/societal structure and pressures that start when you’re a toddler and don’t end until you retire... This is not a place I would want to raise my children.  

The news report was so graphic and awful... it actually showed her body on the ground... her body contorted under a thin blanket, her legs twisted and sticking out the bottom... her feet, adorned with red running shoes, as though they were Dorothy’s magic ruby slippers and she just wanted to go home. Then they made a cartoon of the whole thing... showed her in the classroom getting stressed, walking down the aisle very sombrely (she was supposed to get married in March) and her fighting with her mom... finally, the cartoon culminates with her taking a nonchalant leap out the window at the end of a long, dark hallway. If that doesn't give the students, her fiancé, and her mom so much guilt, I don't know what will.  In an attempt for a more complete newscast, the reports then waited outside our school and chased crying teachers down the street for blocks. 

I can’t stop thinking about it.  I obsess over her motives, her last thoughts, what it’s like to fall, what it’s like to land... I can’t fathom it.  I just can’t.  Did she feel the surge of adrenaline I felt during a bungee jumping free-fall?  Did time move slowly as it does during a car accident?  Did she have time to regret the jump?  As my thoughts spin, the anxiety builds.  Panic attacks and insomnia have become my nightly companions; prescription Valium, my sandman.    

On Monday, counsellors ran the classes; everyone was shocked and speaking in Cantonese.  As good as my “Learn Cantonese” website is, it does not cover the topic of workplace suicide, so I felt very isolated.  I sat at my desk and refreshed my Facebook page all day while trying to piece together what was happening but not wanting to ask a mourning friend to give me a broken translation in the midst of all the chaos.  After school, we had mandatory counselling in small groups, where my group kindly used English.  On Tuesday, we were set to have our school picnic.  Our principal wanted to maintain normalcy for the students so we went ahead with the plan.  It felt odd to run, laugh, and feel the sun kiss our faces when such a sinister reality lurked just below the surface.  The day after the picnic is traditionally a day off.  This is the day Harold left for Thailand.  (He is in Bangkok right now with his friend from Taiwan.  I hope they are having a great time.)  Thursday was the first day of real classes this week.  Her class was the first one I was scheduled to teach.  I just couldn’t be the first teacher to address the kids since they learned their teacher died.  I couldn’t be the first one to sit in her desk, turn on her computer, write with her chalk, console her students in a language they could barely understand; I called in sick.  I knew they’d get more solace from having a local, Chinese teacher with them.  Today, I went and had a decent day.  

There is a lot of support in the school right now.  I think this tragedy has brought the staff closer.  Hong Kong society tends to naturally isolate people; small talk is practically non-existent (a fact which I typically adore), people call each other by a very formal “Mr.” or “Ms.,” and I really think you could work in close proximity to someone for years and not know much about their family or hobbies.  I have noticed more of a casual atmosphere at work.  People are going out of their way to say hi to each other or create small talk in the elevator.  I think that while pondering mortality, it put us all more in touch with the little, everyday things in life.  Never miss an opportunity to laugh with someone, to smile at someone... just a simple hello can be enough to remind someone they’re not alone.  You never want to be the one saying “What if... “ or “If only...”  Seize the day, love with your whole heart, experience as deeply as you dare... dance, sing, pray, spend, travel, eat, take risks, try everything once, have no regrets... live your life!