Throughout my twenties, I frequently commuted between Hong Kong’s urban core and the New Territories, a hilly region that housed my university campus. On numerous afternoons, I would catch a bus just beyond the campus gates, gazing at the verdant mountains in the distance as the vehicle traced the edge of Tolo Harbour. Shortly after, the bus would swing left, revealing a line of tall towers with beige exteriors. Those were the buildings of Wang Fuk Court.
For many Hong Kong residents like myself, these towers symbolized Tai Po new town, serving as a visual cue that we were leaving behind the lush landscapes of the New Territories for the vibrant districts of central Hong Kong. When I close my eyes, I can still picture Tai Po’s curved railway tracks hugging the shoreline of Tolo Bay, the bustling bus terminal, the patterns of working-class apartment complexes. And there among them, the eight Wang Fuk towers rising high.
Following the large-scale pro-democracy protests in 2019, I relocated to Taiwan to complete my first novel. In the years since, I rarely thought about Tai Po, taking for granted that it would remain unchanged, preserving my memories of Hong Kong. This year, I chose to return home to see my family.
On November 26, the day before my scheduled journey, a fatal fire erupted at Wang Fuk Court. Upon arrival, I immediately gathered with several friends at a cha chaan teng café for a late lunch of claypot rice. By that time, the blaze had mostly been contained. Yet news websites and social media remained flooded with images of massive flames and smoke engulfing the towers. Our reunion was filled with tears. Shocked and horrified, we found it difficult to speak words of comfort. At least lives were lost.
The subsequent days passed in a haze. Constantly doomscrolling, I followed updates on the people and pets—cats, dogs, turtles—being saved or found. The number of deceased residents, home aides, and building staff continued to rise. In the evenings, I shared meals with university friends, some of whom still reside in the Tai Po area. I felt apprehensive about confronting the charred silhouette of what had once been an everyday landmark.
This horrific event forced a stark realization upon us: the notion of a secure, permanent home was merely an illusion.
During the 1950s, as hundreds of thousands fled political upheaval on the Chinese mainland and sought sanctuary in Hong Kong, the city experienced a severe housing crisis. The British colonial administration established resettlement areas. These structures marked the first public housing programs in modern Hong Kong. Over subsequent decades, they developed into extensive rental housing estates. For low-income households, they provided basic comfort and some degree of stability.
During my first five years, my family resided in a public housing unit in Kowloon, a northern district separated from Hong Kong Island by Victoria Harbour. In that building, hallways encircled a central lightwell. I enjoyed racing through the corridors with other children from the building. A single yell could be heard by neighbors across multiple floors. In that open space, the affection and conflict in our daily existence felt like a publicly performed drama. We maintained little privacy—conversations between relatives, marital disputes, aromas of cooking and cigarette smoke—all were communal. We observed and participated in each other’s lives.
By the late 1970s, the housing shortage persisted. The government launched the Home Ownership Scheme (HOS) to assist families in purchasing subsidized flats. As they moved out of their rental units, those with more pressing needs could take their place. Within about a decade, over two hundred thousand families became HOS property owners. Following its construction in 1983, Wang Fuk Court became home to thousands of households.
Transitioning from public rental housing to an HOS flat often felt like hitting the jackpot. One of my aunts desired it so intensely that she visited Buddhist temples monthly and maintained a vegetarian diet for two years to build up good karma. For her generation, shifting from paying rent in a public estate to owning an HOS unit signified far more than a simple change of location. At last, they could invest in better furniture, knowing they could remain there indefinitely and eventually bequeath the property to their children.
In the 1990s, my parents were fortunate to obtain a three-bedroom HOS unit in Tseung Kwan O, a New Territories neighborhood where most HOS developments were built. The walls remained thin, but rather than racing through corridors, I now had a proper playground. New towns like Tseung Kwan O and Tai Po were remarkably alike: daily life revolved around a low-rise shopping precinct containing a supermarket, cha chaan teng, bakery, and clinic. Close by, a wet market supplied seafood and meat, and a garden with benches provided a spot for residents to gather. At community recreation centers, ping-pong tables were perpetually occupied. Many inhabitants’ daily activities were completely contained within this area: grocery shopping, taking children to school, medical appointments, visiting friends. What else could one possibly need?
Five days following the fire, I finally gathered the courage to place flowers at Wang Fuk Court. Upon arriving in the area, it felt odd to observe that certain elements of ordinary daily life continued unchanged. Stores remained open. Schools held classes.
Yet naturally, everything had been altered. A section of the community center was set aside for families to identify deceased loved ones. An open space within the center had been converted into a temporary shelter, filled with thin, wrinkled mattresses. The survivors’ sparse possessions were arranged in lines.
That morning, I paused at a desolate laundromat. I had read an with its owner in the local press. She told the reporter that most of her regular customers were Wang Fuk Court residents. In the days following the fire, she had been phoning them individually to see if they were safe. Through the window, I observed piles of freshly laundered clothing.
I found myself unable to stop thinking about these carefully folded stacks of garments. For some survivors, these might be the sole belongings remaining from their pre-fire existence. Some of these clothes would likely stay there indefinitely, together with the claim slips placed in their pockets, awaiting a phone call that would never arrive.
