Hong Kong
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Every morning, 68-year-old Yip Ka-kui sends his wife a voice note that will never be heard.
Sometimes he tells her about things he’s seen, or something that would make her laugh.
Recently he shared that their granddaughter scored the second-highest grade in her class on end-of-year exams.
This would typically be a cause for celebration for the tight-knit family. But last November, Yip’s wife Pak Shui-lin was among the 168 people killed in a fire that tore through seven high-rise residential blocks in Hong Kong’s Tai Po district.
Now more than two months on, the city is preparing to ring in the Lunar New Year, which begins on Tuesday.
It’s the most important festival on the Chinese calendar – a time for families to reunite. Known as the world’s largest annual homecoming, each year hundreds of millions of people across China return home to visit loved ones. Most apartments in Hong Kong are already festooned with red lanterns and banners inviting happiness and good fortune.
But for Yip and thousands of other residents of Wang Fuk Court, there is little to celebrate and no homes to return to, as they mourn loved ones lost in the fire – the biggest disaster to hit the city in decades.
Some have recently buried their dead; others are in limbo in temporary accommodation. All are working through trauma and grief.
“We won’t be celebrating,” Yip said. In past years they would gather for “tuen leen fan” – a big family meal that takes place on the eve of the new year, that Pak would prepare.
Instead, the family of seven may opt for a simple meal or go fishing, he said – one of the many activities his wife loved during their more than 40 years together, but one in which he was always a reluctant companion.
“We’ll do something she used to do,” Yip said. “We hope to continue something she’s left behind.”
On that tragic November afternoon, as the flames engulfed her building, firefighters called Pak and urged her to evacuate. But instead of leaving, she went door-to-door to alert her neighbors to get out.
Her husband had left the building to go check on their son, who also lived in Wang Fuk Court, as soon as they saw indications of a fire in the next block. Watching the inferno spread from outside their home, Yip said he was on the phone with his wife as she tried to escape through the staircase on the 17th floor.
“At that point she said it was too dark and she couldn’t see, but that she was back home,” Yip said. “That’s when the line cut.”
Five agonizing days later, Pak’s body was found on their bathroom floor, with authorities identifying her through her personal belongings.
Pak, who was 66, saved four people and a dog before she likely suffocated to death, Yip later learned. Forensics said she didn’t suffer and died within a minute, bringing some solace to Yip and his two adult sons.
“If she had left (the building), the neighbors could have died,” Yip said. “She would’ve regretted it.”
Yip and his younger son’s family, who also lost their home in the fire, are now living at his older son’s home – just a 15-minute walk from Wang Fuk Court. Though conditions are cramped, with seven people sharing three bedrooms, Yip says he’s happy to be living with his children during this painful time.
“My mother would say that we need to stick together in this moment,” said his older son, 43-year-old Yip Shuen-yin. “To quote one of my favorite Hong Kong movies: ‘Home is where family is.’”
The family want the government to completely rebuild Wang Fuk Court so they can return to their home of over 20 years – the center of their family life.
“These are our roots,” said the elder Yip. “I strongly hope that I can go back to my home.”
Above all, they’re demanding answers to how such a tragedy could have happened.
An investigation into the cause of the blaze is still ongoing, and the government hasn’t announced long-term resettlement plans for survivors – though it has provided rental subsidies for the next two years. Authorities have arrested more than a dozen people on suspicion of manslaughter and corruption in relation to a controversial two-year renovation of the estate before the fire.
The project, which officials later said used netting that did not meet fire safety standards and flammable materials like foam boards, cost each household up to 180,000 Hong Kong dollars ($23,000) – money that survivors say they will never get back.
Yip’s children have taken time off work to help their father with a long list of administrative tasks that come after bereavement, like getting authorities to issue a statement of death and obtaining court documents to dispose of Pak’s estate.
“These two months, my sons have always accompanied me to do everything. I don’t know what I will do when they go back to work,” Yip said.
“I don’t know how. I’ll try my best.”
Lunar New Year grief for Hong Kong fire survivor
Those without the option of living with family have been allotted government-subsidized housing – but that’s just a temporary fix, leaving residents in limbo.
Dorz Cheung and his 87-year-old grandmother Pearl Chow used to share a 450-square-foot apartment in Wang Fuk Court, spacious enough to host a dozen relatives for Lunar New Year.
Now, the pair live on a temporary accommodation site in the Kai Tak neighborhood originally intended for some of the city’s most needy.
These sparse, basic homes that resemble container units are just 130 square feet – too small for Cheung’s grandmother to make the dumplings she loved to serve during the holiday gatherings.
They offer shelter but nothing more, Cheung said, as he reminisced about his childhood and teenage years at Wang Fuk Court, where he played hide-and-seek with other kids in the park.
“These days, I never tell my friends I’m going home. I tell them I’m going back to Kai Tak,” he said.
Chow added: “I miss my neighbors. I miss the parks.”
Many treasured possessions from their past were burned to ashes by the fire: sports medals and prizes Cheung had won in school speech recitals, photographs of his late grandfather being baptized – a joyous moment for his grandma, who was born in a Christian family.
The past two months have been a whirlwind for Cheung. Pent-up sorrow – and a good deal of anger – strike in the least expected moments, he said.
“I would cry. I couldn’t eat in the beginning. I really loved volleyball, but I’ve stopped playing,” he said. “The anger stems from the fact that it’s not just negligence, but a man-made disaster.”
Around two weeks after Lunar New Year, Cheung and his grandma will have to start paying monthly rent of 8,800 Hong Kong dollars ($1,125) if they want to remain in their spartan temporary accommodation.
Cheung would prefer to move to a different apartment that feels more like home, but his grandma – despite missing her Tai Po community – finds herself settling into their new neighborhood and is reluctant to leave. Renting elsewhere would also be more expensive.
Ultimately, Cheung wants authorities to help arrange better permanent housing. But unlike the Yip family, he has no desire to return to Wang Fuk Court.
A task force has begun to study how to resettle these families in the long run, Hong Kong’s leader John Lee said in February, but warned it will take time.
Despite everything that has happened, Cheung still wants to celebrate the Lunar New Year. But it will be nothing like previous years, he said.
“The location has changed. Things and people are no longer the same. (The place) can’t accommodate so many relatives.”
Many of these challenges are magnified for Hong Kong’s foreign domestic workers, who live in their employers’ homes and help cook, clean, and care for children, pets, and the elderly.
These workers are largely women from the Philippines and Indonesia, and are a crucial part of the city’s economy. During the fire, many risked their lives to save their employers’ children and elderly parents.
Astutik, a 43-year-old from Indonesia, helped her employer – an elderly woman – escape the fire, running back to fetch her in defiance of police warnings. CNN is identifying her by her surname to protect her and her employer’s privacy.
Despite their safe evacuation from the inferno, their relationship has been strained ever since, according to Astutik, who said her employer had always treated her kindly before.
“I live there, but it’s like I’m invisible,” she said.
Her employer, whose health is deteriorating, “doesn’t want to be left alone” – making it hard for Astutik to take her one legally mandated rest day per week, or to process her own trauma that she says leaves her hands shaking at times.
Astutik, who is supporting three family members back home, has few options. Domestic workers are required by law to live with their employers. If she quits, she must leave Hong Kong within two weeks.
“I need to make myself very busy, just to forget (what happened),” she said.
Another Indonesian worker, 43-year-old Yasmiati, was among 10 domestic workers who died in the blaze.
When the fire broke out, she was at home with the elderly woman she looked after. The elderly woman’s husband was out at the time; he later told Yasmiati’s sister Purwanti of how he had called Yasmiati as the fire burned out of control, urging her to leave and save herself.
“My sister, of course, couldn’t bear to leave (the elderly woman),” Purwanti said through tears. Neither of them made it out.
Yasmiati’s body was identified several days later, and she was laid to rest in Indonesia over the Christmas period.
Purwanti, also a domestic worker in Hong Kong, went home for the funeral. For a moment, she wondered whether to even return to the city, where she used to wander with her sister on their days off, strolling its parks and frequenting Indonesian restaurants together.
“When I eat, I always think of her,” she said.
But Purwanti, too, has family back home to support. So, she returned to the city and is now slowly adjusting to the gaping hole left by her sister’s absence.
As practicing Muslims, the sisters usually spent the Lunar New Year period planning festivities for the holy month of Ramadan that follows shortly after.
Without Yasmiati, this Ramadan feels “very heavy,” Purwanti said.
“But I don’t have a choice – I need to celebrate.”
